The Boy Who Shouted I At the Heart of the World
by Kraven Ergeist
Summary: THE DIFFERENCE OF A LIFE, BOOK 3 :: The time has come to end the war against the Angels. Loyalties teter in the balance, as friends become enemies, and enemies become friends. Who will fight? Who will win? Who will survive? Shinji x Rei :: COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**The Difference of a Life**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep."

- Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

* * *

May 6th, 2016

A phone rang.

"Yeah?"

"It's me."

"Ah. That was faster than expected."

"Our enemies don't like to waste time. How soon can you be ready?"

"On your signal. Our…mutual friend has been kind enough to give me safe haven."

"I expected nothing less. Oh, there is one thing I should make sure of before we get started."

"What's that?"

A smirk.

"Can you fly a plane?"

xxxxx

Shinji sat over Rei's still body as she lay in the hospital bed. He and his fellow pilots seemed to be spending more time here than in their own suite. Kensuke was eternally bedridden, and Mana hadn't left his side, though she had taken her first few steps without crutches. Hikari would be released in a few days, and Toji had been wheeling in and out of her hospital room day in and day out. Mayumi wasn't injured, but she hadn't been by the suite either, or so he heard. She had been strangely aloof lately. Asuka was restless and anxious, partly because of how poorly she had faired in that last Angel battle, and partly because Kaworu had left his hospital bed without alerting anyone, and had been nowhere to be found for the past twenty-four hours.

Shinji would have been concerned. Despite their differences in the past, Kaworu had proven himself to be a friend. He owed him a lot, particularly because without his training, Shinji was sure Rei would have died in that last battle. It was nothing short of a miracle that any of them survived that fight.

Rei's heart monitors blipped steadily, and she breathed easily. There was nothing wrong with her physically. Something had happened to her in that Angel battle though, some inner conflict that he couldn't see. Whatever demons or hardships she faced, she would have to face them herself. All he could do was remain by her side, her silent companion, to be there when she woke.

Her eyes opened the barest fraction.

"Shinji…?"

His hands closed over hers.

"I'm here Rei…"

Before he could voice more than that, the gunfire started.

xxxxx

Ryota Soryu had resigned himself to menial desk duty for the past several months. His salary hadn't been changed by a single cent, and being the Assistant Vice-Commander, a title that was nothing more than that – a title – allowed him to save face amongst his peers while bearing practically none of the same responsibilities that his previous job had required of him.

A part of him felt like he had gone into early retirement. While the trivialities of managing the onrush of meetings with members of the UN and the German government on behalf of NERV were boring compared to commanding the military and scientific assets at his company's disposal, it did keep him occupied enough not to feel laid off or useless. But still, he craved the excitement and feeling of duty that his previous job had instilled in him.

Which is why he remained motionless for a minute and a half when he received an electronic phone call, informing him that, effective immediately, his title as Commander of the First Branch of NERV was hereby restored, with all the rights and privileged thereto.

When he got over the initial shock and excitement about getting his old job back, his brain started to kick back in.

This was too convenient. This kind of thing didn't just happen. What exactly was going on behind the scenes?

Or perhaps the better question to ask was, what had Gendo done?

He pushed in his chair and pulled on his coat, yanking his phone out of his pocket as he marched towards the office door.

"Honey?" he said into the receiver after his wife picked up. "Cancel your dinner plans…"

xxxxx

The hospital wing had been barricaded, the pilots, some of whom had been wheeled out in their beds, and the medical staff all gathered in the lobby as Section Two officers stood at the ready to protect the pilots from whatever it was that was going on outside.

"What's going on?" Toji was asking, Hikari clinging to his arm.

"Why can't we leave the medical wing?" Mana was demanding, standing over Kensuke's prone form.

Rei was getting shakily to her feet – her bed had been wheeled out along with Hikari and Kensuke's. "Where is the Commander?"

Shinji cast a concerned glance to the nurse who had been assigned to Rei.

"I wasn't told anything," the nurse shrugged, looking to one of the guards.

The guard simply shook his head and peered back out the barred window.

The other pilots were locked in a state of nervous disquiet. Shinji remained by Rei's side. Toji and Mana stood (or sat) by the beds of their loved ones. The only ones unaccounted for was Kaworu, Mayumi, and…

"Let me go!" came a voice.

And Asuka.

The doors came open and all the guards tensed, and then relaxed as two more Section Two officers dragged Asuka by the wrists into the hospital lobby.

"What's the big idea?" Asuka demanded in heated German after being roughly shoved into one of the waiting room chairs. "You can't keep me here! I demand an explanation!"

"It's for your own protection," one of the officers replied in bland Japanese. "Armed insurgents have infiltrated NERV, and there is no time to get you to any of the shelters."

Asuka's eyes widened, but she did not lose her furious look.

"Asuka…" Shinji called out gently.

Only then did Asuka seem to realize that everyone had been gathered in the lobby, even the pilots confined to their beds. She watched as the Section Two guards relocked the main doors, and the two guards who had brought Asuka in joined the ranks of armed men at arms.

She wandered over to Rei's bedside to speak in hushed tones with Shinji.

"NERV is in total lockdown," she said morbidly, eying the bared windows. "When I heard the gunfire, I tried to get in touch with my parents, but Section Two intercepted me before I could get to them."

Shinji nodded gravely. "So you don't know who's after us?"

Asuka wrinkled her nose. "_Who's after us_? Are you dense? They've already _caught_ us!"

Shinji had half a second to think 'what?' before the windows and doors all smashed in simultaneously. Canisters of smoking gas spewed in by the dozens as Section Two began shouting and firing at random. Shinji threw himself over Rei to protect her from the stray fire, and he thought he saw Toji and Mana doing the same with their respective charges. In the smoke, he also thought he saw Major Katsuragi, two of the NERV techs and… Father?

His mind didn't have time to process this thought, as a Section Two guard came into view through the haze of smoke, coughing and choking. Shinji stood up, standing in front of both Rei and Asuka.

"What's going on!" he demanded, growing tired of being kept in the dark.

The officer leveled his semi-automatic at the three pilots, speaking into his walkie-talkie.

"We've been compromised. Unable to capture alive. Do we have a kill order?"

Blood drained from Shinji's face. Behind him, Asuka tensed. Rei was sitting up in her bed, reaching to take Shinji's hand in hers. "Shinji…"

It finally clicked. He finally realized the conclusion that Asuka had already reached. They weren't being kept secured in the hospital for their safety – they were being kept prisoner!

Their world was spinning. The very organization that had been sworn to protect them was about to end their lives. Shinji squeezed Rei's hand in his. With his other, he pushed Asuka behind him.

He would take the first bullet. Maybe buy Asuka enough time to escape. She was a fighter; maybe she would make it out of this alive. With any luck, she'd be able to get Rei to safety. It was a long shot. But it was all he had left.

He stared down the cold muzzle of the guard's semi-automatic. Then, with a loud CRACK, the gun flew out of his hands.

"Wha-?" he gasped with incomprehension as Kaworu – Kaworu? – hit the Section Two officer with the heel of his hand that shattered the guard's nose.

With a thud, the guard fell backwards, blood draining from his facemask.

Through the clearing smoke, other figures became visible. Mayumi practically danced through the air in a dazzling aerial ballet of back flips, cartwheels and flying kicks that weaved around the guards' erratic bullet fire and knocked them all cleanly onto their backs. Hyuga and Shigeru were dragging bodies out of the entryway as Major Katsuragi and Commander Ikari stood by the door, eying the hallways outside, each armed with one of Section Two's semi-automatics.

"Come one!" Kaworu shouted, seizing Asuka by the hand. Shinji hadn't even noticed she had pushed past him to get an explanation from the pale-faced boy.

"Kaworu!" Shinji blurted through coughs and tears from the fading gas. The other pilots were voicing similar exclamations. "Father! What the _hell_ is going on!"

"We've been betrayed," his father said calmly as he peered out the door, rifle readied in his hands. Hyuga and Shigeru orderly wheeled the two bedridden pilots two either side of the main doors, each pilot's companion deftly following at their sides. "All of NERV has turned against us. I've been relieved of my command, and all of us are to be placed under arrest under pain of death." He turned and fixed each of the pilots with an ironic smile. "If this is a fate you wish to avoid, I suggest you come with us."

Asuka looked like she was smiling, though she was still coughing. "Hmph…at least we can still trust _someone_!" She then rapped Kaworu on the temple with a sardonic glare. "And where have you been for the past _day_?"

Kaworu gave her one of his trademark smiles. "I've been quite busy. I apologize for not keeping you informed, but I promise…" he gave Asuka a quick peck on the lips. "All will be answered soon."

Asuka blinked rapidly, her prepared tirade against the boy effectively halted in its tracks. She began to blush, and opened her mouth to offer some kind of complaint, but found her voice uncooperative.

The smoke had all cleared away. The orderlies were all cowering behind the main desks. There were Section Two officers, some dead, some unconscious, all lying prone around the lobby. On one side of the door, Kensuke lay prone in one bed, Mana stubbornly waiting at his side, with Hyuga behind him, ready to wheel him out. Hikari, Toji and Shigeru were similarly situated on the right. Commander Ikari and Major Katsuragi stood ready at the door, Kaworu and Mayumi right behind them.

"Where are we going?" Shinji asked, in a tone that offered no objection, but merely puzzlement.

"Away from the First Branch," Gendo answered simply. "Out of Germany. We'll need to secure our ride in the hanger."

"I…" Kensuke's voice sounded before Shinji could prod further. "I'm only going to slow you guys down…"

Mana gaped down at him. "Ken! Don't talk like that!"

The boy slowly shook his head, a difficult task in his neck brace. "Even if you get me out, what good am I to you? I'm paralyzed."

Mana squeezed her eyes shut, crying not for the first time since the battle that had left Kensuke in this state.

"Were that our only concern, we might just take your advice," Kaworu offered wisely, walking to Kensuke's side. "But you're one of our pilots. We need you. And you won't be as great a hindrance as you might think."

Kensuke and Mana looked up at Kaworu, clearly confused. "What do you mean?"

Kaworu gave Mana a reassuring look before placing his hand on Kensuke's forehead. "I take it you're not a religious man, Kensuke? You've never believed in miracles? Like the healing of the sick, the lame, or the blind?"

Kensuke's eyes suddenly squeezed shut as a jolt of pain shot through his entire body. He felt like he'd just stuck his tongue in an electrical socket! Every part of him felt like it was on fire.

"Kensuke!" Mana gasped out as she saw him convulsing in pain, his face tightened in a grimace.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He let out a shout as his whole body jerked, and curled up into a fetal position in response to…

Wait…

Had he just moved his arms and legs!

Opening his eyes, his pain forgotten, he looked up at Mana in wonder.

"Ken!" Mana gasped as Ken sat up in his bed, opening and closing his hands in disbelief. "You're moving!"

He looked down at his once useless body, and found that from his fingers all the way down to his toes, his entire body was once again responding to his brain.

Everyone was staring at Kaworu in amazement. Everyone save Gendo, Rei and Mayumi.

"Kaworu…" Asuka breathed in disbelief. The rational thinker in her mind refused to accept what she was seeing. Had she just witnessed her boyfriend make a cripple whole again?

"You won't be able to walk right away, but your ability to pilot should be unhampered," Kaworu reassured, giving Kensuke's shoulder a reaffirming squeeze.

Mana wanted to seize Kaworu by the collar and press him for answers, but not nearly as much as she wanted to throw her arms around Kensuke's shoulders and cry in joy.

Which she did.

"Kaworu…" Shinji fixed the Fifth Child with an incredulous stare. "How did you…?"

"Come on," Misato shouted, tucking away that little incident into the back of her head, and bringing the present situation back to the forefront. "We can worry about it _after_ we get you to safety!"

xxxxx

Kaji quite honestly loved his job. It had always been fun and exciting, but very few instances had his job ever involved the amount of subterfuge as it had today.

To be fair, his usual affair involved a lot more treachery and backstabbing than search and rescue.

"Are you going to tell us what this is all about?" Kozo Fuyutsuki asked with no small amount of impatience. Despite his skepticism about his current predicament, he was not about to put up a fight, especially since he had just narrowly escaped bullet-fire from his own Section Two guards scant moments before Kaji had whisked him away.

"Simple," Kaji said, smiling in that maddening way that usually meant he was enjoying the fact that he knew something you did not. "We're waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive, and then we leave Section Two with the check."

The two of them, as well as Ritsuko and Maya, sat in the cockpit of one of the massive Eva Carrier Jets that the First Branch had on hand. It was not Kaji's first choice, but it was the only plane that had the space they needed to fit all the passengers. The only other vehicles in the First Branch's hangar were half a dozen VTOL craft lined up neatly on the side opposite the football field sized carrier.

"You might as well give up, Vice Commander," Maya said, eyes closed and arms crossed. "He's not going to tell you until he absolutely has to."

"What Kaji isn't telling you," Ritsuko said from behind tinted glasses, her attention on the laptop on her knees. "Is that Section Two officers all throughout NERV have been given arrest warrants for all three of us, as well as the pilots and the other two technicians." She peered over her glasses at their unshaven benefactor. "Kaji himself has a kill-on-site warrant."

Kaji shrugged, but was saved from having to explain himself as an alarm bell sounded throughout the hangar. Yes, this certainly was a fun job. Although, granted, before today, he had never had nephilim on his side.

"Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen…" he nodded at his passengers lightheartedly as he casually lowered the main cargo ramp just in time to see Misato and Gendo leading the pilots and the rest of NERV's escapees past the unconscious guards Kaji had inauspiciously left just out of direct view of the door and into the airplane hangar.

"Right on time…" he waved casually.

Misato stared in disbelief as she saw Kaji hanging out of the walkway of the carrier. A flare of anger rose up inside her. "You!" She shouted, pointing a finger at the man accusingly. "I should have figured you'd be behind all this!"

Kaji seized her wrist, and with a tug, pulled her close to him, their faces inches apart, giving her a fierce look that made her heart stop.

"You just make sure these pilots get on board safely," Kaji said, no nonsense in his voice. "And then we can start pointing fingers."

Misato stared back at him, wanting to yank her grip away and slap him, but resolved to do so afterward, and simply nodded, waving to Shinji. The boy was helping Rei walk on her frail legs, as they preceded the two bridge bunnies wheeling the hospital beds into the hanger and up the ramp, with Mayumi, Kaworu and Asuka holding up the rear.

"So how exactly did you take out all those guards all by yourselves?" Asuka was asking Kaworu skeptically, as they walked hurriedly towards the carrier.

"The same way you would have, Asuka," Kaworu shrugged. "We've all taken the same combat courses. Clearly, you had an equally brilliant escape plan up your sleeve all along, right?"

Asuka looked away, pouting. "Right. I mean, of course!"

Mayumi just chuckled.

Kaji sat down in the pilot's seat, with Maya sitting beside him, already beginning the preflight startup procedures. "Are Ritsuko and the old man all settled in?"

Maya sniffed indignantly from the forward-most passenger seat. "If by 'old man,' you mean the Vice Commander, then yes, they're strapped in."

Ritsuko was busy tacking away at a laptop behind her, a cigarette dangling loosely from her mouth. "You could always ask 'Ritsuko and the old man' yourself, Mister Kaji…"

Fuyutsuki ignored the prattle as he watched with a certain amount of trepidation as the Commander, the Operations Director, the techs and the pilots all filed on board, sitting themselves into the fold-out passengers seats along the side of the companionway of the carrier. The craft was not designed for passengers, and the techs had to bodily lift the bedridden pilots out of their beds and into the sideways seats.

"Hurry," Ritsuko said distractedly as she typed away a mile a minute, monitoring the MAGI's activity on her miniscule laptop. "Section Two's been alerted to our presence. They'll be here any minute!"

"Are the hanger bay doors open?" Kaji demanded, starting the engines.

"Not for long!" Ritsuko hollered. "Punch it!"

The bottom of the cargo bay ramp screeched along the tarmac before it began to lift back into place as the giant carrier plane slowly wheeled out towards the hanger bay door. They rolled out onto open air moments after the doors began to close shut.

Off in the distance, klaxons were blaring, as VTOL buzzed around in the distance.

"How far out are those fighters?" Misato asked, eying the VTOL precariously.

"Far enough," Kaji mused, turning the carrier towards the runway. "Once we get up to speed…"

His voice fell off as something loomed off in the distance. He squinted his eyes to see the shape coming towards them.

"What in the world…?" Kaji asked absently.

An ice-cold hand suddenly clutched at Misato's heart, and she suddenly grabbed the control yoke and yanked them in the direction away from the approaching object.

"GO! NOW!"

Kaji began to nudge the accelerator forward as Maya flipped on the rear camera.

Everyone in the craft suddenly wished she hadn't.

"What?"

"How?"

"No way!"

Charging at them at full speed was Evangelion Unit 01.

No time to wonder how or why, especially since everything else that had once been under their control was now turning against them. Kaji simply began increasing the accelerator.

"A dummy plug…?" Ritsuko whispered in disbelief.

Shinji was just about burst out of his seat to demand an explanation from the Doctor – weren't all the Dummy Plugs in the First Branch supposed to have been destroyed after all? – when Kaji pushed the accelerator a little bit more, sending the carrier at a brisk pace down the runway, causing everyone to hold onto each other for dear life. The seats lining the side of the companionway of the carrier were not intended for regular use, else forward facing seats would have been installed. As it was, everyone not lucky enough to have grabbed one of the four such seats in the cockpit was sandwiched together like a pack of sardines.

The massive carrier couldn't accelerate very quickly from a standstill– if Kaji had simply pushed the thrusters to maximum, they would have gone nowhere fast. Watching the mindless monster of an Evangelion barreling down the runway after them might have panicked any non-military pilot. But Kaji was no amateur. He feared the Eva coming towards them, but he feared the consequences of making a mistake even more. Moreover, he knew that bringing the carrier up to take-off speed the way it was intended to was their best chance of survival.

"Kaji…" Misato urged nervously behind him, her eyes darting from between the runway ahead of them and the screen displaying the enemy controlled Eva getting closer and closer. It looked to be only a few steps away from them – in just a few bounds it would overtake them!

Three steps…

Two steps…

One step…

Kaji pulled back on the flight controls and the carrier suddenly lifted off the ground with a jolt! Everyone jerked suddenly. Maya nearly threw up. Kaji had deliberately delayed the take-off until he had reached well over the speed necessary to do so. The added speed made their climb much more abrupt, and lifted them away from Unit 01 much faster, jumping to an altitude of almost a hundred feet in a matter of moments. Had he taken off any sooner, the carrier would have been climbing a matter of a few feet at a time. As it was, they could practically make out the whites of the Eva's eyes.

The pilots all relaxed in their chairs.

"Why the hell was one of our own Eva's chasing after us?" Toji demanded, adrenaline leaving his system.

"They couldn't have found replacement pilots this quickly…" Kensuke mused.

"They didn't," Shinji said coldly. "They're using a Dummy Plug."

The other pilots looked at him baffled. Before anyone could ask him what he meant by that, Maya suddenly pointed to the receding figure of Unit 01 in their rear view screen. "Hang on! We're not out of this yet…"

Everyone watched in horror as the purple bio-mech, still running along the remainder of the runway below them, threw its head back to let out a primal roar as the armor plating along its back burst open to reveal eight luminescent wings.

With a mighty leap, it took off into the air after the carrier, quickly gaining altitude, closing the distance between them at a startling speed.

"What the…?" Misato gasped at the winged beast. "Since when could Unit 01 do _that?_"

"A dummy plug has no synchronization limit," Ritsuko said, forebodingly, her attention still on the MAGI readout. "Our pilots have only managed to synch below a hundred percent. My mother always theorized that the Eva's had hidden abilities that would be available at the triple digit level."

"There's no way we can out-fly that thing!" Maya gasped, pointing at the radar, showing the tailing blip gaining on their center dial at an alarming rate. It would be on them in moments!

Kaji chewed on his lip, before questioning the air in front of him. "What do you think? Can you jump us?"

It was not readily obvious whom he was talking to. As no one knew what he meant, no one said a word, waiting for whomever Kaji was addressing to respond.

Then…

"I'll need Rei and Mayumi's help…" Kaworu said.

All the pilots fixed their gaze on Kaworu.

"Alright," Asuka demanded, seated at his right. "What exactly is going on here?"

Kaworu nodded to Mayumi at his left who only nodded in return and closed her eyes. He looked at each of the other pilots in turn, ending with his eyes on Asuka.

"Everyone, I need you all to set aside your questions, your complaints and your suspicions, we have precious little time," he said soberly, before looking directly across from his seat and fixing Rei with the most serious expression she had seen on his face. "Just like what we did to get Shinji out of the Eleventh Angel. I need you to focus."

Rei's brow was furrowed. As many eyes were on her as were on Kaworu. The other pilots were voicing their questions and concerns, the techs were demanding explanations, and the rest of the adults aside from Kaji were staring at Kaworu with utter stupefaction.

Rei nodded.

"Do it!" Kaworu shouted.

Kaji, quite unexpectededly, took the carrier into a nosedive!

Most of the pilots were screaming. The lights in the cabin had turned red from the sudden strain on the hull. Alarms were flashing as everything that wasn't bolted down when flying towards the back of the cabin. In the windshield of the cockpit, the brown and green surface of the Germany landscape was fast approaching. An automated voice was blaring out in German "Alarm! Alarm! Impact in zehn Sekunden!"

Kaji pointed out the windshield at a marking on the terrain below them.

"There. That lakebed should do it."

Misato gripped the back of his chair with all her might.

"Kaji! Why are we crashing?"

"Trust me!" Kaji hollered, his focus on keeping the carrier pointed at the slightly darker blotch on the ground. "I know almost exactly what I'm doing!"

Kaworu's browed was knotted in concentration. His hand was clasped around Asuka's. Her gaze wasn't leaving his face. Shinji was staring somberly at Rei, whose face was locked in an equally rigid expression.

"Impact in fünf Sekunden!" the voice said.

Toji and Hikari had their arms around each other, as did Kensuke and Mana. All were staring out the windshield at the oncoming ground.

"Vier…"

Maya tensed nervously, but jerked suddenly as she felt Ritsuko's hand on her shoulder. She stared back at her over the seat, seeing her smiling face.

"Drei…"

Gendo closed his eyes. He wondered idly if he would see Yui somewhere in the afterlife.

"Zwei…"

Mayumi's hands were clasped together. Had anyone been looking, she, Kaworu and Rei would appear to have been glowing.

"Ein…"

Misato arms tightened around Kaji's chest, and she closed her eyes, burying her face against her shoulder.

Kaji, rigid as a doornail, did not waver.

"HOLD ON!" he shouted.

xxxxx

May 7th, 2016

"Kaji, is that you?" came a female voice over the radio. "You're ahead of schedule!"

It was dark inside the cabin of the carrier. The emergency light had come on and was slowly flashing red to illuminate the tussled and jumbled interior. Most of the pilots had been flung out of their seats. No one had been substantially hurt, though some people were put in more compromising positions than others.

"Whose elbow is that poking me in the back?" Asuka demanded.

"That, umm…isn't my elbow, Asuka…" Kaworu said defensively.

"Eeeeeeeek!" she flailed around, punching _somebody_ in the nose. "Hentai!"

"OWWWW!" Toji exclaimed, clutching his face in pain. "Damnit, Red!"

"I was about to say that it was my knee," Kaworu amended, a little too late.

"Toji, are you alright!" Hikari shouted in a panicked voice, trying feebly to reach him with her hands.

"Ack!" Mana yelped, squirming away. "Hikari! Watch what you're grabbing!"

"Is everyone alright back there?" Misato called back to the pilots, rather pointlessly by this point.

"Do I _look _alright!" Toji demanded, clutching a bleeding nose.

"We're fine, Misato," Shinji called out, holding a conscious but weak Rei in his arms. "But where are we?"

"Good question…" Shigeru said looking at Kaworu.

Kaworu shrugged, helplessly. "Why don't you ask her?"

Everyone looked to where the Fifth Child was pointing, and saw a cute brunette face on the view screen, talking with their pilot.

"Welcome back to Japan, Mister Kaji," the NERV tech said cheerfully.

"Japan?" Misato exclaimed in disbelief, yelling into Kaji's ear. "How in the world did we make it back to Japan? For that matter, how in the world did we survive that crash?"

Ritsuko put her hand on Misato's shoulder. "I might have a theory about that…"

She leaned in to speak in a hushed voice into Misato's ear.

"Kaede?" Maya blurted, seeing the face on the screen. "Kaede Agano? Is that you!"

Kaede blinked several times. "Wait…you're Maya Ibuki, aren't you? Weren't you in my particle physics class?" Kaede's expression turned sour. "What exactly are _you_ doing with Mister Kaji!"

Maya blinked, unsure of how to answer, when Kaji came to her rescue. "I brought her and the other NERV techs along with the pilots and the leading staff of Project E. We're _all_ wanted by Section Two. Look, I'd love to stay and catch up Kaede-chan, but right now, could you tell us where we are?"

Kaede instantly perked up. "Oh, you're off the coast, just a few clicks from Tokyo-3. A rescue team is already on their way."

Fuyutsuki raised an eyebrow. "More Section Two?"

"No, actually," Kaede explained. "The JSSDF. Section Two hasn't been stationed here for the past six months."

Gendo smiled at that. The pieces were starting to fall together in his head. He was starting to get a clear picture of what was going on.

"Wait a minute," Hyuga said, pushing his way forward. "How did we get here in the first place? There's _no way _we made it to Tokyo-3 in the amount of time that's passed!"

"Actually…" Misato called out so that everyone could hear her, "There is."

Before Ritsuko had spoken to her, Misato had looked like she was lost in a storm of chaos. Nothing was as it should have been. But now she wore an expression of confidence.

"I'll debrief you all after our ride gets here. Shake it off, everyone!" she said in a militant tone that demanded obedience. "Get ready to mobilize. We've got more than enough wounded." She turned to look everyone over in the dim lighting. All the pilots were taking this all like troopers. Ritsuko was helping Maya to her feet. The Commander and Vice Commander were both standing, not bothering to supercede her orders, trusting her to lead. The techs were as suspicious and awestruck as the rest of them, but the looks in their eyes told Misato that they would do their duty unquestioningly.

And Kaji was still in the pilot's chair, smiling at her.

She winked back at him. "Kaede-chan, huh?"

Kaji started, looking embarrassed. "Uh…well, about that…"

"Forget it," Misato sighed, shaking her head in amusement. "Are you coming with us or what?"

He regained his composure. "Hey, I got you all this far, didn't I?"

"You did…" Misato nodded, before reaching down and seizing him by the tie, and pulling him towards her for a rough, hungry kiss that took him quite by surprise.

"Mmph!" he vocalized into her mouth, which was otherwise preoccupied with devouring his lips.

Ritsuko snickered a little. Maya cleared her throat uncomfortably.

Misato finally released him, letting Kaji fall back into the pilot's seat with gasp for air.

"Just don't go running off again," Misato smirked down at him with another wink.

Kaji could only blinked up at her in astonishment.

Misato turned back to everyone with a smile. "Alright, people! We made it this far by sticking together. Let's keep it that way!"

A few minutes later, the rescue choppers arrived.

xxxxx

The two VTOL that carried the pilots in one chopper and the other NERV staff in the other back to the Third Branch were the same model and make as the type used by Section Two, but piloted by the Japanese government special defense forces.

"How are you feeling Rei?" Shinji asked the First Child, who sat beside him in the VTOL, a blanket wrapped around her by one of their rescuers.

"Tired," Rei said, smiling back at him reassuringly. "That…jump…took a lot out of me…"

Shinji blinked. "What exactly did you three do, anyway?"

Rei shook her head. "I really don't know, Shinji. All I'm aware of is that one moment, we were hurdling towards the surface of the German countryside, and the next moment, we were floating in the water off the shore of Japan. I can't explain how it happened…just the fact that I was tired afterward. Mayumi and Kaworu both appear to be equally exhausted."

Shinji nodded. He had noticed that the other two were unusually silent.

"This…has something to do with being part-angel, doesn't it?" Shinji asked, rather insensitively. "Kaworu and Mayumi…are they…like you?"

Rei closed her eyes. "I cannot say for certain about that either, Shinji. Just that…the three of us seem to have AT fields of our own."

Shinji bit his lip. He had so many questions, and Kaworu had all but passed out after boarding the VTOL. He stole a glance at Mayumi from across the cabin who was staring out the window.

"Glad to be back?" He asked her, breaking her out of her reverie.

"Oh, yes," the bespectacled girl said, looking embarrassed. "I was just admiring the countryside. It's so much different from Germany…"

She sensed Shinji's eyes still on her, and she sighed.

"I can explain a few things now…" she said, eyes closed. "But as for the whole truth…you're better off seeing with your own eyes when we get to Terminal Dogma."

Shinji thought back to his days of training in Tokyo-3. He was surprised how fuzzy some of those memories were. "What's in Terminal Dogma?"

By now, the other pilots were listening with hushed interest over the hum of the engines outside. Toji, Kensuke and Hikari had all been placed on gurneys, but were still listening intently.

"An end to everything," Mayumi said morbidly, eyes closed. "I can't say more than that."

"Then how did we…jump…back there?" Shinji asked, realizing he wasn't going to get more out of her on that subject.

"The Sea of Dirac," Kaworu chimed in, surprising everyone. "The same sea that almost swallowed you up during the 11th Angel battle, Shinji. It is not a phenomenon limited only to Leliel, but to all Angels. I suspect Dr. Akagi guessed this as well, and that the adults are recieving a similar briefing in the other vehicle."

Asuka was blinking, her brilliant mind putting the pieces together in her head. "But…you're only part Angel. How did _you_ manage to make one?"

"It's for that reason that it required Mayumi, Rei and I together," Kaworu explained. "And even then, it exhausted our strength. We will be substantially weakened for the next day or so."

The other pilots were looking at Kaworu, then Rei, then Mayumi and then back again.

"So wait…" Kensuke adjusted his glasses. "You three…are part Angel?"

Kaworu gave Kensuke a stoic look. "If you were at war with an alien enemy you knew nothing of, but had access to their genetic material, would you not try to replicate that enemy to give your side a greater advantage? You are looking at the outcome of a such an attempt."

Kensuke blinked. As a strategist, that not only put it into perspective, but it also made perfect sense.

Toji looked strangely at Rei, scratching his nose. "Always thought there was something odd about you, Blue. And here we thought you were just an albino."

"Toji!" Hikari pinched his cheek, causing him to grimace in pain. "He doesn't mean that, Rei! We still think you're exactly the same as when we grew up!"

Rei only smiled, barely staying awake.

"Umm…so what _is_ the Sea of Dirac?" Mana asked, looking like the odd man out. "I…must have skipped that day in class."

"There are only theories…" Kensuke held a finger up, eyes closed like he was giving a lecture. "It bears the same properties as an AT field, but upside down, backwards, and inside out. Some have theorized that a quantum singularity lies within. Some have theorized that it leads to a pocket dimension."

"There's some truth to all of that," Mayumi took over the discussion. "It's the medium that connects all dimensions, the link between our world and that of the Angels. The passageway through which all souls come from when they are born, and through which all souls return through when they die. It can be accessed from anywhere in the universe, which allows it to work as a doorway to cross over great distances…" she made a face. "Though, to be frank, relying on it for such trivial tasks is a gross under usage of its capacity."

Kaworu nodded. "Anyone with an AT field should technically be able to enter it, and everyone in the world technically has an AT field. Most simply don't learn to tap into its full potential. Of course, being part Angel gives us a bit of a boost."

He threw Mayumi a sardonic smile.

"Extra training doesn't hurt either."

Mayumi smiled sweetly back at him. "Is it my fault Feng Shui just happens to coincide with the way an AT field manifests?"

Asuka tapped her chin ponderously. "Maybe the Chinese were onto something with that. So wait, does this mean that you three can basically…_teleport_ anywhere at will?"

Kaworu held up his hands. "Oh, no no no no! Not at _will_! For one thing, someone equally capable with an AT field has to be on the outside to pull me back out! Otherwise, I could get lost inside, or come out to find myself drifting out in space or buried under miles of earth. No, only full angels can navigate the Sea of Dirac. Those of us nephilim who are only part Angel can only make small forays."

Shinji looked at Kaworu suspiciously. "So how long have you _had _this ability?"

Kaworu shrugged. "Only since very recently."

Shinji would have pressed for more answers, but he suddenly noticed Rei's head hit his shoulder as she began to lightly doze against him, and he tucked the blanket in tighter around her.

"Get your rest while you can," Kaworu smiled paternally at the two of them. "Things are only going to get rough again once we land."

xxxxx

It was mid morning by the time they reached Tokyo-3. They had skipped a day due to the time shift from Munich to Tokyo time zones. As they flew over Tokyo-3, the entire city looked to be in full lock-down, its buildings tucked underground, leaving only missile silos and defense turrets to welcome any foreign visitors.

Whoever was running things in Tokyo-3, they expected a fight.

They were saluted by several more JSSDF officers when they landed and escorted onto NERV premises under armed guard. It felt eerily similar to what Section Two had been doing, but no one tried to make a run for it. The three nephilim all looked perfectly calm, though that may have simply been fatigue. Gendo and Ritsuko also looked unsurprised to see the Third Branch still kept in working order – once the pilots, the Evas and the Angel specimens had been moved out, the complex had become a dummy facility, which NERV had quickly lost interest in. With nothing to repel from its borders, the money that the Japanese government had original budgeted to bolster its defenses began to accumulate, so when the JSSDF high command had offered a substantial amount of that budget to the upkeep of the Geo-Front, NERV had, after months of negotiations, given stewardship of the Third Branch over to the Japanese Government.

Leaving Tokita Shiro effectively in charge of the Geo-Front.

The man was tall, business-like, an aspiring Commander. He had once envisioned a nuclear powered, un-manned replacement for the Evangelions, but the project had never received the financial support it had needed to get off the ground. Now, he enjoyed a seat of great responsibility over a facility that could mean the difference in Japan's survival in any and all upcoming wars, for like every ranking officer in the JSSDF, Tokita Shiro loved his country first and foremost, and everything, his career, his honor, his life, everything was devoted to protecting Japan.

"Welcome to the Geo-Front, Commander Ikari, Vice Commander Fuyutsuki, gentlemen, ladies," Tokita said, not saluting for he was still the ranking officer here and he was determined to keep it that way, but standing up straight and respectful nevertheless. "We've been expecting you, but not quite so early."

They were in Central Dogma now, welcomed by the Commander and the resident staff. The Command Center looked the same as they had left it, but it had an alien feel to it having spent so much time at the First Branch. After Kaede, Aoi and Satsuki stopped swooning over Kaji, the three of them immediately began discussing the latest changes with Maya, Huyga and Shigeru, the latter of the two looking very keenly interested in getting to know their new coworkers. The pilots, several still wrapped in blankets, most over paltry hospital gowns, simply stood at attention, looking drained, lacking the energy to voice any questions or even proper greetings to the new staff.

Gendo and Fuyutsuki looked unsure of how to handle the new Commander of their old facility, whether or not they should supercede his authority now that they were back, or politely bow their heads and follow along. It was Ritsuko who broke protocol first, as no matter who ran the show she was still in charge of Project E.

"Commander," she stepped forward. "With respect, there's something I need to investigate down in Terminal Dogma as soon as possible."

Shiro blinked in surprise. Terminal Dogma was supposed to be under total lockdown. Not even _he_ had the credentials to get down _there_!

"If you can get past the security checkpoints the brass put in place around there, then you're welcome to go wherever you like," Tokita shrugged.

Ritsuko turned on her heel and made straight for the elevator. Commander Ikari looked like he was about to march afterward, but paused long enough to step in front of the pilots and fix them with an unreadable expression. "Pilots, you've done well to make it this far. Get some rest. We don't know when to expect a retaliation, from NERV or otherwise. Do not forget, there is still one last Angel to face. We must assume it will strike us here. Major Katsuragi, I'm leaving things in your hands."

Misato saluted as Gendo deftly followed Ritsuko down the hall, Fuyutsuki by his side.

"Pilots," she said, facing the nine Eva pilots. "Under the circumstances, I cannot permit any of you to leave the Geo-Front. You all know where the lodgings are. I'll see to it that food and clothing is brought over to the dorms. It's not the most appetizing fare, but it's the best we've got."

"Shouldn't be much worse than your cooking, Katsuragi," Kaji offered with a wink.

Asuka suppressed a snort. Shinji just cringed. Misato didn't respond to the barb, though she did exhale just a little.

"You heard the Commander," she crossed her arms. "Get some rest. But be on alert. We may need you at a moment's notice."

"What for, Major?" Kensuke blurted out. "We don't have our Evas!"

Major Katsuragi gave him a terse look. "Pilot, what is your duty?"

Kensuke stood upright. "Ma'am! To defeat the Angels, Ma'am!"

Misato nodded. "That's right. And why must we defeat the Angels?"

Everyone looked at each other oddly. No commanding officer had ever asked them that before.

"Because…they're attacking us?" Toji offered.

"Because they're the enemy?" Mana put in.

"Guys…" Shinji sighed. "To protect humanity."

Misato smiled. "That's right. To protect humanity. Your job is to protect humanity - by any means necessary. Right now, you don't have your Evas. That may change. We don't know. Until then, you are to remain ready in case it does, or do whatever you can do instead if it doesn't."

Misato saluted them all.

"Dismissed!"

xxxxx

The NERV dorms were hardly comparable to the pilots' suite at the first Branch, but even if they weren't very spacious, at least there were plenty of them. Two of the pilots hadn't gone directly to the dorms as ordered, however.

"Nii-san!"

Hikari watched in reverent silence as Toji's little sister flung herself into his arms.

"Hey Squirt!" he smiled, wrapping his arms around her from his wheelchair, crushing her tiny body against him. "You been keeping out of trouble?"

"Not a chance!" she laughed, then fixed him with an accusatory look. "What are you doing in that wheelchair? I thought you said you'd be taking care of yourself! Nii-san, you liar!"

She pounded her tiny fists against his head, and he helplessly tried to deflect her vicious assault.

"Ack! Cut it out! Come on, don't worry about me!" he winced helplessly. "I'll be out of this in a week or two! Promise!"

She fixed her gaze on him. "Promise?"

He nodded, smiling. "Promise. Hey, where's Dad?"

"At the shelter," the young Suzuhara explained. "He's waiting for you!"

"Then why don't we all visit together?" Toji threw Hikari a smile. "Maybe Hikari's old man is there with him."

Hikari blinked and blushed. Meeting Toji's father? Toji meeting hers? The concept seemed so harmless, and yet…it felt like such a big step. Even though her father at least knew that there was somebody she liked, he had never met him before now.

"I…I'd like that…" she said quietly.

Toji's sister blinked at the older girl. "Toji…is this the Class Rep you keep talking about in your emails?"

Toji smirked and nodded. Hikari just raised an eyebrow.

"Almost a year going out, and you're still calling me Class Rep to your sister?" she demanded. "I haven't been any sort of 'class rep' since we left Tokyo-3!"

"Oh, don't be like that…" Toji winked as he wheeled his chair along the corridor towards the civilian shelter. "You'll always be Class Rep to me!"

Hikari slowly plodded along weakly beside him. "Idiot…"

They all laughed as they went off to see familiar faces from their past.

xxxxx

"Ummm…Mana?" Kensuke asked, uneasily. "Are you sure we need all this stuff? I mean…half of this equipment doesn't even look legal…"

The 'stuff' that he was referring to was a Springfield MA1A, an Armalite AR-10, and an Ithica M37. Mostly disassembled, the parts laid neatly and orderly on the mattress of the dorm room.

Mana's response was only to smile sweetly, placing a spare cartridge next to two others like it on the bed.

Kensuke stared with no small amount of alarm at the components on the bed. "How did you even get a hold of some of these pieces!"

Mana winked playfully. "Oh…I have a few connections. I grew up in the army after all."

Kensuke held up one the bullets that went into one of the firearms. It was larger than any of his fingers!

"And what _exactly_ are you planning to do with all of these?" he eyed the bullet in his fingertips, twirling it around to inspect it from every angle.

"You heard the Major," Mana said, putting the MA1A together. "Protect humanity by any means necessary. I don't know about you, but my aim is to be prepared for the worse."

Kensuke was sitting on the bed – he could walk, but shakily – looking back and forth between his girlfriend and the high-end weaponry she had on the bed, and shook his head shamefully.

"You're a freak, you know that?" he said jokingly.

"I know," Mana didn't take her eyes off the gun she was cradling in her arms. "Wanna help me put together the Armalite?"

"Could I please?" Kensuke's eyebrows went up, as he greedily latched onto the components with the glee of a small child in a candy store.

Once they had all the equipment installed, they practice targeting. The weapons weren't loaded, but it paid to get a feel for the weight and the heft of a weapon, especially ones as heavy as these.

"So, you hold it like this…" Mana was explaining, as Kensuke fumbled with the heavy assault rifle. For all this enthusiasm, he was a complete novice with the real hardware. "No, no…" Mana corrected his stance, and peered down the sight beside him, and corrected his stance again. She felt him tense the more she spent in such close proximity, though she noticed, with an approving smile, that his eyes were only focused on the gun he was holding, and he was following her instructions as best as he could.

She had never given lessons on any of her skills – she had spent the majority of her life on the receiving end of the majority of such lessons, but for her first 'student' as it were, she had to admit that Kensuke was very serious in his interest, enough not to lose his focus on a pretty girl.

Well, such seriousness deserved a reward…

"Glad to see I'm not the only one who believes in being prepared," she hummed approvingly, standing away from him with her hands on her hips.

"Hmmm?" he asked, his eyes still focused down the barrel of the weapon in his hands.

"What's that, a Smith and Wesson?" Mana nodded to him, a smirk on her face. "That gun in your pocket?"

Kensuke lowered the rifle to blink at her in confusion, before his face suddenly went beet red. "M-M-Mana!" he lowered the rifle even more to hide whatever the NERV starch-washed back-order school uniform pants were revealing about his unconscious blood flow.

Mana sat back on the bed, giggling madly. "Hahahahahaha! At least we know all your 'equipment' is in proper working order now that you're back on your feet."

Kensuke turned away to face the window, face flushing. "I…I thought this was supposed to be a _normal_ firearm lesson…if I'd known you were gonna spend it making fun of me…"

Mana got to her feet and quickly went over to him to throw her arms around his shoulders. "Oh, Ken…you know I only tease you cause I love you, right?"

Kensuke blinked, eyes wide, looking back at her with an expression close to shock. "You…you _love_ me?"

Mana blinked cutely, giving his torso a gentle squeeze. "Of course. Wasn't that obvious?"

Kensuke blushed, looking away. "Well…I guess nothing about girls is ever 'obvious' to me."

Mana pursed her lips in a cute little pout. "What? Don't you love me too?"

He paused for a moment, his face out of site. He waited perhaps a second longer than he needed to, and Mana felt tears well up, when he suddenly turned around, with an enormous smile on his face.

"Of course. Wasn't that obvious?"

Her eyes widened as he stepped over to her and kissed her before she could do or say anything, not minding the Armalite that still hung on a shoulder strap around his neck that let the enormous piece of hardware get sandwiched between their bodies.

Mana broke the kiss off, and grabbed hold of the rifle between them, eyes full of passion. "This thing is getting in the way…"

She lifted the rifle over her head, and slid underneath it without removing it from Kensuke's shoulders. She set it down behind her, allowing the shoulder strap to wrap around the both of them. This didn't quite fit the design parameters of the shoulder strap, and ended up squeezing both their bodies together rather snugly.

"There…that's better…" Mana smiled as she wrapped her arms around him and started kissing him again.

Kensuke was inclined to agree.

xxxxx

There were about a million and a half things for Misato to do now that she was back at the Third Branch. Much had been how she had left it, which meant everything had to updated to whatever knew procedure, programming or setup that she had established after learning from half dozen more Angels battles in that time. Other things had been changed from the way she had left them, which meant there was even _more_ work for her to do, undoing everything that Tokita or one of the techs had done and starting again from scratch.

Finally, Hyuga stopped her in her tracks.

"Major Katsuragi, you've been working round the clock since yesterday morning. Take a break! The other technicians and I have things well in hand, and everything's coming along as smoothly as can be expected. You can afford to take an hour or so to catch your breath and get yourself something to eat."

Misato looked at the clock. By now, it was already late afternoon, and starting to get into evening. She was loathe to leave her post, but Hyuga was right. She hadn't eaten, slept, or even _peed_ since she had woken up in Germany.

"Fine," she sighed, taking a breath. "You have the bridge, lieutenant."

After a quick bathroom break, she found herself in the break room, staring idly at the vending machines. The fare seemed so alien to her, until she realized she had gotten so used to German snack food that she had all but forgotten what she even _liked_ in Japanese vending machines anymore. More importantly, she noted with a forlorn sigh…no beer.

She selected a snack that rang familiarly with her, as she wondered idly where Ritsuko was – and for that matter, where the Commander and Vice Commander were. They had said they were down in Terminal Dogma, which had been strictly off-limits to her in the past. She was playing with the idea of trying to sneak down there, when a six-pack of Yebisu dangled precarious in the air beside her head.

She looked over to see Kaji holding the familiar beverage cans out to her with a smirk. "I come bearing gifts."

She closed her eyes and gratefully accepted the proffered gifts with a smile. "It'll take more than a six pack of beer to get into my pants, Mister."

Kaji chuckled at the old joke, and sat down beside her and helped himself to one of the cans. "You wouldn't be the women I knew if you made it _that_ easy for me."

Misato held the beer can in her hands, not opening it, but feeling its cool surface between her hands, letting it rest between her knees as she sat, thinking.

"Just how long has NERV been planning on betraying us like this?" Misato wondered forlornly. Having the company she had been working in all her life put a warrant out for her and her peers had really yanked the carpet out from under her. Surrounded as she was by familiar scenery, beverages, and old boyfriends only made things harder to deal with.

"Probably from the get-go," Kaji said, matching her expression as he stared at the far wall. "It's like Ritsu says…you were a testing ground. You were the best. Once they figured out what the limits and capabilities of all their resources were, the plan was to get rid of you, sweep it all under the rug, and replace everything with something more controllable – dummy corporations as a source of cash-flow, dummy facilities like this one to draw the public eye, dummy plugs to control the Evas…"

"But why?" Misato said, her mind spinning. "Most of us have devoted our entire lives to NERV and its goals. Most of us would have devoted the _rest_ of our lives to this job. Had all this not happened, we'd still be at our posts back in Germany. Hell, even here, we're filling the exact same roles, doing what's familiar to us, just for a completely different organization."

Kaji still hadn't opened his beer. Neither had Misato.

"Probably because those 'goals' that you mentioned that you and everyone else would so willingly strive for were about to change – if they weren't all a farce to begin with," Kaji offered her a forgiving smile. "It's easy to draw out talented and enthusiastic help with such ideals as 'protecting humanity from the angels,' but would you and everyone you know have signed up so eagerly if the message behind NERV was about, say, dominating the world governments? Or holding dominion over the heart of the world through a massive religious upheaval?"

Misato felt sick. Her entire reason for working at NERV had been revenge on the Angels, but it had also been to prevent anyone else from suffering as she had. She thought she had been doing some real good in the world. To find out that the very organization she had devoted so much time to was…

"Are you telling me that NERV is actually doing something like that?" She asked, eyes hidden behind her hair. Her whole body was shaking, and her teeth were gritted so hard, Kaji worried she might bite her lip.

"I don't have any proof," Kaji said, unreassuringly. "But nothing I've found points to the contrary. They certainly haven't been doing things _just_ for the sake of world peace, that much I can say for sure. But, as I'm sure you're aware, you are _not_ NERV, and NERV is _not_ you."

Misato said nothing for a while, and then swallowed. She looked up at Kaji, a defeated look on her face.

"How long do we have?" she asked, hopelessly. "Before they try to take us back...or take us out?"

Kaji slipped his hand into hers. Neither had opened their beers. Neither seemed inclined to. "By now, they know where we've gone, so…maybe a day. Or two. It depends on how quickly the other MAGI supercomputers can break our firewalls."

She squeezed his hand back. "That's not much time…"

His other arm came around her to pull her into an embrace. She didn't struggle.

"Maybe it'll be enough…" he said, crushing her to him.

In their time together, Kaji had always been passionate, always ferocious, wild, untamed. This was the first time Misato could remember feeling genuine tenderness from her lover though. The embrace he held her in was not that of one who hungered for the other, or even one of reassurance, though that might have been part of it. But what she sensed from him now was a need, not for physical release, but for genuine comfort and reassurance. Kaji was just as afraid as she was that they weren't going to make it out of this.

Somehow this made her feel safer.

xxxxx

It took Asuka the better part of the day before she found Kaworu, standing near the reservoir of the Geo-Front that recycled all their precious fresh water. They had both donned their school uniforms that the JSSDF had so graciously provided, despite the fact that neither went to that particular school anymore, though how they knew her sizes, Asuka could only guess at.

"And where have you been all day?" she asked by way of greeting as she slowed her stride to stand next to him as he leaned against the cement wall that made up the border of the giant inverted pyramid shaped basin next to the right-side-up pyramid that was their headquarters once upon a time, and was now merely a safe haven provided by the JSSDF.

Kaworu was leaning on his elbows on the short cement wall that allowed onlookers to peer out across the still surface of chlorinated water. "As busy as everyone has been these days…" he shrugged noncommittally, smiling as he closed his eyes.

"Doing what exactly?" Asuka raised an eyebrow as she joined him overlooking the water surface.

"Making preparations for the final battle," he opened his eyes to look at her. "As I hope you have been doing."

Asuka sighed. "Look…I really like you, you're a swell guy and all…but this really isn't going to work out unless you start being more _honest_ with me."

"I haven't lied to you once, Asuka," Kaworu said, brushing off the accusation implied by her words.

"You've damned well been keeping the truth from me," Asuka said bluntly, crossing her arms.

"I keep the truth from everyone," Kaworu said, with a hint of sadness. "I have to. If I didn't…I would have been destroyed long ago."

"What does that mean?" Asuka demanded, jutting her chin out. She was growing more and more tired of his word games.

"I have never…truly…trusted anyone, Asuka…" Kaworu breathed, still not making eye contact with her. "Not even my own father…" Especially_ not my own father_, he though grimly. "Please understand, for someone like me-"

"But I don't _know_ what 'someone like you' is! I don't know who you really are!" she grabbed him the shoulders, turning him around to face her. He met her gaze, not mockingly, but passively, seeing what she would do.

Asuka was staring at, for all intents and purposes, the greatest mystery of her life. She knew and understood everything she had ever come across. And everything she couldn't had only been a book or a website away from being understood.

But Kaworu…

"You say you're part Angel, but I don't even really know what that means!" Asuka blurted, not waiting for him to respond before moving onto her next quandary. "Should I think of you as an enemy? Should I think of you as a friend? How much of you is human, and more importantly, how much of what you feel for me is because of that humanity?"

Her eyes began to soften.

"When I look at you, it takes almost all of my willpower to tear my eyes off you. How much of _that_ is because of the Angel inside of you? How much of what I like about you is because of the Angel within you, and how much is because of the human being?"

Kaworu finally moved, his hand coming up to brush a stray lock of hair from her face.

"So what are you really asking me, Asuka?"

Asuka felt a single tear trickle down her cheek. "Am I…am I falling in love with a human…or an Angel?"

There. She'd said it. As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't deny it any longer. She was in love. God damn it, she was in love, and there wasn't a single thing she could do about it.

For a while, Kaworu said nothing. He only stared at her, or maybe he stared past her. Asuka couldn't really tell. His eyes were so deep, it was impossible not to perceive them as boring holes into her at all times.

Kaworu took a breath. "Angels…while they do feel love, the love they feel is that of pathos, of unconditional, heartfelt love. Their love is perfect, holy, unshakable. Like a mother's love for a child."

Kaworu put his hands on Asuka's shoulders.

"Angels, though unique from one another, are not 'individuals' as you think of them, for they each answer to a higher cause. They do not feel a fraction of the emotions that humans feel, for emotions both cloud judgment and split loyalties. Angels do not feel what you would call lust, or desire, or limerence."

He leaned in closer to whisper into her ear.

"So, if nothing else, you can sure that the desire that I feel for you right now Asuka…" his breath tickled her ear. "…is purely human."

Asuka cheeks reddened and she cracked a smile. "…Pervert."

"You asked for honesty," Kaworu admonished. "And if nothing else, know that I think of myself as an individual in a way that no Angel could. That you could harbor such feelings towards me as an individual, and not as some vague paragon or ideal…"

Asuka raised an eyebrow, though she didn't push him away. "Modest, aren't we?"

Kaworu shook his head. "My point is…for you to feel an emotion beyond simple desire for someone like me means that, as a human, you must have come to know me, not as some pretty creature to be admired from afar, but as an individual, with faults and flaws that you've accepted and chosen to love by your own accord."

Asuka's flush deepened as she looked away. "It wasn't a…conscious decision on my part…"

Kaworu shook his head. "It never is. Though I found myself wishing and hoping that I could come to honestly love you as a person and not as some ideal or paragon yourself."

"Flattery gets you nowhere," Asuka shook her finger at him.

"Then how about if I said…" his arms slid around her waist. "That my wish came true?"

Asuka looked at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Then she placed one hand behind his head, the other on his chin, and brought his face to hers and kissed him, pressing their faces together, her fingertips curling through his silver hair.

Kaworu obliged her by pressing back, his arms tightening around her waist to draw their bodies closer, their abdomens pressing together as Asuka tilted her head to deepen the kiss.

They parted briefly enough for Asuka to ask one last question.

"Are you done 'making preparations' for the day?"

Kaworu looked unfazed, save for a lack of breath. "Does it matter?"

Asuka smiled. He was learning.

xxxxx

Shinji tried to sleep that night. He tried to calm his nerves and allow his mind to drift off into slumber. One might as well have said that he tried to stop the sun from rising, as his mind refused to grant him repose. Too much had happened, too much had changed. His entire world had been turned upside down – again – and his whole worldview was once again something entirely different than what it had been.

He stood by the window of the pilot's dorms. The view was off the Geo-Front, of the moonlight pouring down from the reflective chambers that filtered natural light into the otherwise lightless abyss that was their safe haven. The buildings suspended on the ceiling half a mile overhead blinked with erratic artificial light whose purpose held no meaning to Shinji.

Behind him, Rei lay sleeping off her weariness in the double bed, the only one in the dorm. These rooms were designed for single patrons, or couples if they were close. Initially, he had thought Major Katsuragi irresponsible, allowing fourteen and fifteen year old pilots to pick and choose their own lodgings. As involved as many of them were with one another, it should have been obvious to Misato that many of them would room together. Not exactly something most adults smiled upon.

The more he thought about it though, after all the training they'd received, the number of battles they'd been in, and amount of other shit they'd all had to deal with, if Misato didn't trust them all as self-responsible pilots, there wasn't a human being capable of living up to any standard that could. There were plenty of rooms to choose from, and they were perfectly capable of making their own decisions. If the pilots decided to sleep alone or with another that night, that was a liberty they had consciously been afforded, and to be fair, it was something each of them had rightly earned. Sure, given the freedom they'd been entrusted with, they all could have easily roomed together and thrown a big party and carried on into the wee hours of the morning.

If they were normal teenagers.

None of them saw any point in doing something like that though. The situation was just too dire, and they were all mature enough to recognize that. The urge to mess around wasn't even there anymore. Even as they each roomed with someone they were close to, and even as many of them were enjoying their privacy together, it was not out of a teenager's experimentation, curiosity, or infatuation.

It was done out of a need to be with one another.

They all might die tomorrow. Each and every one of them knew it, at one level or another. That was a tremulous notion for anyone to try to go to sleep with. They _needed_ each other, if not for someone to reassure them that there was something to hold onto, then at very least for a distraction to keep them from worrying themselves into hysterics and be able to function as was required as pilots as soon as that need arose.

Unfortunately for Shinji, Rei had been so exhausted, both from her part in the jump that brought them all safely to Tokyo-3, and from the Angel battle she had very nearly perished in scarcely a day ago, that she had fallen asleep almost as soon as she had entered the building that morning. She had needed her rest, and Shinji knew it. But his nerves were raw, and he was going crazy with no one to talk to.

"Good evening, Ikari," a low, gentle voice sounded.

Shinji blinked, surprised, and looked around. It hadn't been Rei's voice…

"Out here…" the voice giggled softly.

Shinji slid the window all the way open and peered outside. To his left, the window of the dorm room adjacent to theirs was open, and Mayumi was resting her elbows on the windowsill, looking up at the marvel of the Geo-Front.

"Oh…good evening, Mayumi," Shinji smiled, foolishly. "Can't sleep either?"

She shook her head forlornly. "I should be exhausted after everything that's happened today, but for some reason, by body just doesn't want to sleep."

Shinji nodded, resting his elbows on his sill, mirroring her position. "I thought that you'd be with your parents. Aren't they from around here?"

She shook her head. "They moved back to China after I shipped out to Germany. I haven't heard from them since we escaped from NERV."

Shinji heard a twinge of fear in her voice. "I'm sure they're alright, Mayumi. Have you brought it up with Major Katsuragi, or one of the bridge technicians? I'm sure they'd be able to help you get in touch with them."

She shook her head. "They're all busy enough just trying to bolster the defenses of our headquarters. We're all at far greater risk than my parents are. I'm not worried about them or anything – they're far enough away from here that I don't think they'll come to any harm. They're smart enough to keep a low profile, as I'm sure they've heard the news about us by now."

Shinji smiled wanly. "They taught you everything you know, didn't they?"

Mayumi nodded. "Everything…except where I really came from."

Shinji winced. If Mayumi was like Rei and Kaworu then…

"How long have you known?" he asked, timidly.

"Shortly after we helped you escape the Eleventh Angel," Mayumi said, impassively.

Shinji could tell she was holding back tears. He was at a loss for words – how does one comfort someone who only recently found out that they were adopted?

"You know…I really envy you, Second Child…" he heard he say, her voice cracking a little bit.

"Why?" Shinji asked, honestly unsure of what she could possible be envious. She was a far better pilot then anyone else. She kept a much cooler head on her shoulders, and she had the greatest control of her AT out of the three nephilim of their group.

"It would probably be more accurate to say…" this time he heard real tears in her words. "That I envy Ayanami…at least, I envy what she has."

Shinji blinked dumbly, completely taken aback. He turned to look at her, though her face was poorly illuminated in the dim reflected light of the moon. He saw tears glistening in the fragments of light. But he also saw her smiling.

He swallowed.

"I…I'm sorry…" he muttered, turning away helplessly. "I…I wish there was something I could do…"

"Don't," she stopped him mid thought. "You and Ayanami deserve each other, more than anyone."

Shinji bit his lip. He didn't have a response for that either. He felt stupid. He couldn't leave things like this.

"We should both get to sleep…" Mayumi said breaking his thoughts, her face disappearing inside her window, before returning to look back on Shinji. "Since…since tomorrow might be our last days on this Earth…do you mind if I call you Shinji from now on?"

Shinji smiled a little. "Of course you can."

Mayumi nodded, wiping her eyes clean. "Ok then. Goodnight, Shinji."

She closed the window, leaving Shinji to his thoughts.

Shinji closed his own window moments later, and slid into bed next to Rei. He gently wrapped his arms around her sleeping form, and nuzzled his head against her shoulder. What did it matter that she slumbered? He still had more company than Mayumi had. Rei would be with him when they awoke. Asuka would have Kaworu. Toji would have Hikari. Kensuke would have Mana.

Mayumi would be alone.

He nestled in closer to Rei, who stirred sleepily. He kissed her cheek as she slept, her face still beautiful to him in the dim light.

"Goodnight, Rei…"

In the moonlight reflected through the mirrors of the Geo-Front, he thought he saw a ghost of a smile.

xxxxx

May 8th, 2010

It was not even dawn when Misato came pounding at the pilot's doors. They all hurriedly dressed and followed her in an orderly fashion. Questions were met with assurances that all would be answered soon, though for the lack of activity and noise throughout the Geo-Front, it was clear that they were _not_ under attack just yet.

Still, Misato's face was the definition of urgency. And for some reason, she refused to meet Shinji's gaze in particular.

Only when all nine pilots had filed into the elevator did she begin to explain.

"We are about to head into Terminal Dogma," Misato said, typing in a code into the elevator keypad, rendering the internal light a gentle red that no longer burned their sleep-deprived eyes. "What you are about to see is…well, I'll be frank…I didn't even believe myself at first."

"Let me guess…" Asuka said, her mind the sharpest out of all of theirs. "You and Kaji tried to sneak down here yesterday."

Misato inhaled. While the rest of the pilots, save the nephilim, were still probably trying to remember what the term 'Terminal Dogma' even referred to, Asuka had already determined that a Major should not have had the credentials to come down here on her own. The fact that she was now leading them down here meant that the Commander had caught her in the act, and decided that since the cat was out of the bag, and the Major was too valuable to execute, that they might as well reveal everything.

Whatever the pilots expected when they stepped out of the elevator and through security doors massive enough to keep an Eva from entering, they weren't expecting this.

Gendo, Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko were standing together in the middle of a dark expansive room, much like the room Rei's clones had resided in, though the walls and ceiling weren't visible in the gloom. They were all speaking gravely with two other people. As the pilots peered closer, they realized that they recognized who the other two people were.

Professor Naoko Akagi.

And Commander Yui Ikari.

"M…Mom…?"

Time seemed to stop. Shinji all but fell over. It was her! Her hair was a little longer than he remembered it, but it was definitely his mother. Professor Akagi too. Both were wearing their typical lab coats, and speaking calmly, if with a sense of urgency, with the other adults. If his father had been surprised to see Yui still alive, he had gotten it out of his system. He was, however, no longer wearing his glasses, and his expression was, overall, a bit less fearsome. And Fuyutsuki looked practically joyous. Ritsuko even more so.

Shinji kept trying to think 'How?' 'Why?' But all he could really do was war with himself over whether to feel enraged suspicion at this being a trick, or ineffable relief that his mother had somehow returned to him

The adults turned to face the disbelieving faces of the pilots and immediately stopped talking. They watched them as the children slowly stepped closer to the group, exchanging uncomfortable glances. It was Yui who first spread her arms wide to welcome them all.

"Pilots," she addressed them as a group first. "I apologize that I had to keep my existence a secret from you all. It was necessary that SEELE believe me to be dead were I to accomplish what needed to be done." She turned to look directly at Shinji. "For that…you have my deepest apologies."

Shinji took a step forward. His mouth was dry.

"M…M…M-Mom…" he stuttered, tears welling up in his eyes. "Is…is it really…?"

The other pilots had enough tact not to say anything that would ruin the moment as Shinji ran into mothers arms, awash with relief, sadness, pain and love all at once. The look of happiness and relief on her own face was just as palpable, having for so long steeled herself away from such maternal drives, and only now allowing herself to feel them, she gathered her son into her arms and embraced him tightly.

"Oh Shinji…I missed you…" she said, not cooing or condescending, but simply letting her love for him be known.

Shinji sobbed. The images, the heartache, the pain, all of his memories from that fateful day at sea…they all came flooding back, bringing with them the tide of terror and disbelief he had kept barricaded into the oblivion of his soul.

Not even Gendo had the heart to separate the two, despite the urgency of their situation.

As the song went, however, the Angels were in their hearts cruel.

"Children…" a voice echoed throughout Terminal Dogma. "There is very little time…"

The voice was large, powerful, filling them all and shaking them beyond comprehension. All but the nephilim had to take a step to steady themselves, and had it not been for his mother, Shinji would have fallen to his knees.

"Who…?" Rei asked, the least phased yet the least comprehending, stepping over to where Shinji stood in his mother's arms, looking back into the deep darkness beyond where they stood. The way her voice echoed, it was obvious that the room they were in was much, much larger than it looked.

Yui let out a breath. "I kept the room darkened to lessen the initial shock…I figured you would all be plenty surprised to learn that Naoko and I were alive. But even assuming you have accepted this fact, I do not thing there is anything that could lessen the impact of seeing this."

She nodded to Naoko, who simply flipped the dial on a massive switchboard attached to a number of cables that fed off along the ground and into the darkness beyond.

The pilots all started as a light came on from within a giant glass tube filled with LCL that glowed an eerie yellow-orange. It matched the container in which Ayanami had once called home in all but sheer scale, for within drifted the black leathery body of Sachiel, the Third Angel.

The pilots all gaped. Even though only Shinji, Asuka and Rei had been the ones to fight this Angel, they all had gone over the videos of the battle often enough to see this Angel in their sleep.

Asuka's brows knit. "What?"

Beside Sachiel's tube, shortly after, lit another tube of equal size, this one containing the body of Shamsel, the Fourth Angel.

"Son of a-!" Toji bit off a curse, not expecting to see any more of his foes preserved.

A third and fourth tube lit up behind the first two, these two containing the bodies of the diamond shape of Ramiel and the fish-like body of Gaghiel, the Fifth and Sixth Angel. Behind those two, the two faces of Israfel and the wormy body of Sandalphon. And behind them, the spidery body of Matarael and bulbous shape of Sahaquiel. And then the floating nano-machines of Iruel and the spherical shadow of Leliel.

"This is the reason I needed to die," Yui said, forebodingly. "This is the fruit of our labor; The Evangel Project."

Farther back, the the lights came on to reveal the gelatinous black blob of Bardiel and the mighty frame of Zeruel. And farther back still floated the angular wing shape of Arael and the circuitous double helix of Amrisael.

"This is what should have happened fifteen years ago on that fateful night in Antarctica! " Yui went on, pride and awe both overflowing from her voice. "This is what SEELE could _never_ do!"

She spread her arms wide, looking somewhat like a mad scientist, and somewhat like a religious zealot all at once.

"Communion with the Angels!"

Between the two rows of tanks walked two graceful figures. A man and a woman. They stood apart from each other, and yet stepped as one, their bodies somehow catching the light even when they walked through shadow. At first glance, both appeared to resemble Rei and Kaworu, but with an age to them that was impossible to mistake in the pilots. Both were also nude, though nothing about their poise, shape or hue would possibly allow anyone to think they needed to be clothed.

The woman inclined her head towards the children, though it was a nod of acknowledgement, and not a bow. This woman…this Angel…needn't bow to anyone!

"I am glad to see you all have come this far, my children…" her voice was like a pure note that rang eternally throughout the spacious hall.

"You have surpassed That Which Should Be," the man spoke, and his voice was like thunder, a power that couldn't be contained, yet somehow embraced you and enveloped you within itself. "Now we gather at the Heart of the World to see how fate will play out."

Everyone knew at once who they were looking at, but no one wanted to be the first to speak.

"Adam and Lillith," Rei said, breaking the silence that kept everyone imprisoned. "You two…are Adam and Lillith."


	2. Chapter 2

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**The Difference of a Life**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

"Ninety-nine knights of the air,

Ride super high tech jet fighters,

Everyone's a superhero,

Everyone's a Captain Kirk."

- Nena, "Ninety Nine Red Balloons."

* * *

November 9th, 2015

Yui and Naoko were watching in a mixture of fascination, awe, and pure abject terror as the cross-mounted Lilith began to _shrink_. Its hands were yanked from the spikes that held it in place, and it dropped into the sea of LCL at its feet. Its mask fell from its – _her _– face and short white hair became visible.

No alarms went off, no alert sounded through the MAGI, no one outside of Terminal Dogma was even aware of what was going on. Technically, what was going on couldn't possibly _be_ going on. And yet, the two doctors watched as the white figure of Lilith began to shrink at an alarming rate.

Their attention was only diverted by a clattering that sounded behind them, as the container that had held Adam, left a reasonable distance away on one of the lab tables, fell to the floor. The Adam specimen, the tiny fetus-like creature, had begun to grow. Arms and legs began to grow from bud-like appendages as the small creature began to take human form and grow short white hair of its – _his_ – own.

Neither doctor could act. If what they thought was happening was in fact happening, they were already too late, and anything they did at this point would be futile. The only recourse left to them was to observe as closely and as objectively as they could.

As scientists.

Because their human hearts were shaking with terror.

xxxxx

May 11th, 2016

Ryota Soryu was the picture of professionalism in his freshly pressed Commander's jacket. Looking at him, nobody would have assumed that he was anything less than the bastion of control and discipline that his outward features exuded. Not a single iota of his being suggested anything but calm, cool, collectedness.

No one, not even his own wife, who stood not ten paces below him monitoring the lines and lines of code the MAGI was spitting out at her, would have guessed that not twenty-four hours ago, he had been reinstated from what was otherwise a secretarial position, and later informed that his daughter had been "kidnapped" by JSSDF insurgents and held hostage within the Third Branch at Tokyo-3.

Of course, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu didn't need to read her husband's expression to see the wheels already turning in his head about how he was going to get her back. She too stood in statuesque calm, not a hint of fear in her eyes for her daughter.

For she knew there was no need to be afraid. Her daughter was Asuka Langley Soryu, the first Eva Pilot to ever bring a Unit to functional synchronization. And she was married to Ryota Soryu, the most decorated officer in all of Germany, the rightful Commander of the First Branch of NERV.

Their daughter was in no danger at all.

xxxxx

November 10th, 2015

It was the night before their departure to in Germany. Yui and Naoko hadn't slept for days, and it was beginning to show. Of course, they had known for years that they and everyone they loved were pawns in a chess game of biblical proportions. But actually getting to meet the chess-players face to face, and learning firsthand what the rules were…well, _that_ had a way of putting a different perspective on things.

After this, there was no turning back. She and Naoko would set the wheels into motion, and then, apart from the occasional contact between Adam in Tokyo-3, and Lilith in Germany, the two of them would become ghosts, completely isolated from the world as they knew it.

Of course, spending as much time as they did in the lab, the lifestyle change would not be that big of a shift. Yui, at least, would miss her family. Naoko would too, though she hated parting with Rei under the terms that she had. She honestly felt no animosity towards the girl, but she had never truly "adopted" her in her heart. Then again, as Ritsuko would attest, Naoko had never been a very nurturing mother even to her own.

"Are you prepared?"

It was a voice that they would never get used to. Even if they spent the remainder of their lives listening to the world through the dictation of his Angelic voice, hearing Adam speak simply did not feel natural.

Yui and Naoko exchanged a look. They had been communing with the Angels for days now. The Angel attacks would continue as dictated in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They had already learned of the next Eva pilot stationed in Germany. Adam and Lilith had been able to communicate with him, and arrange for him to meet the fleet as it was attacked by Gaghiel. And as Kaworu dealt the finishing blow, the explosion would engulf them all, save for Lilith.

Adam would then envelope them within his AT Field and whisk the lot of them back to Terminal Dogma through the Sea of Dirac. SEELE would be suspicious, but the Angels were more than capable of eluding detection when they did not wish to be seen. There, Yui, Naoko and the Angels would remain, to receive the cores of the rest of the Angels as they fell, each one making its way back to Terminal Dogma through the Sea of Dirac - or, failing that, to witness the destruction of humanity on earth. With Lilith on one side and Adam on the other, the transition would be completely untraceable.

"Yes," Yui declared after letting loose a sigh. This was not something she was looking forward to – as much as she loved her work, she did not wish to leave her son and husband for the better part of a year, letting them think her dead. But as a scientist, as a human being…having heard what Adam and Lilith had to say to her, she had no other choice. "We're ready."

Adam nodded. "Then let the stone be cast. Through this deception, we shall see, at last, if That Which Should Be shall prevail yet again."

Lilith raised her arms and began to chant a mantra that neither woman could understand as she once again grew to her full size. Time seemed to go in reverse as her hands melded once again to the bolts upon the cross. The two doctors were so caught up in the spectacle that they barely noticed Adam shrinking down once again to pint-sized prenatal life form, once again bound to a flask.

Within moments, the two Angels had resumed the guise they had once held not three days prior. Both doctors, as sleep deprived as they had been, might have sworn that the whole thing was little more than a sleep deprived hallucination.

"Alright…" Naoko said, closing the lid on her laptop. "Let's go…"

Yui, picking up the Adam specimen, a bitter look on her face, followed her out the door.

xxxxx

May 11th, 2016

"So let me get this straight…" Asuka's fists were clenched in a clear sign of restrained anger. "All this time…all these battles…they've all been for _nothing_?"

The nine Eva pilots stood in mixed groups upon the institutional concrete floor of Terminal Dogma. Among them stood Gendo, Misato, Kaji, and the Akagi doctors, Ritsuko and Naoko. Before them, Yui Ikari stood, and standing beside her were two pale nude figures that bore about as close and as distant a similarity to Kaworu and Rei as was physically imaginable. Behind them, fourteen massive vats stood, filled with orange-yellow fluid, and each containing a member of the foes that over the past year and a half had plagued, haunted, and in some cases _tortured_ them all.

And from what Asuka could decipher from the Ex-Commander of NERV, all of it had been a complete farce, some kind of elaborate test concocted by the Angels.

"It certainly hasn't been for _nothing_, Third Child," Yui's tone was understanding but broached no contest. "We are all still paying for our crimes in Antarctica. As the children of the generation from which that crime came, that burden unfortunately falls heaviest upon you. I wish it didn't have to be this way-"

"Bullshit!" Asuka blurted, taking a step forward, but not daring to draw any closer to the two ghostly figures at the ex-Commander's side. "Why did we have to go through all that? What kind of 'test' is that? Do you have _any_ idea what that _verhurtes dreckskerl -_" she pointed an accusatory finger at Ariel's tank "- did to me?"

Yui looked like she was about to answer, when Kaworu's hands came to rest on Asuka's shoulders.

"If you must blame someone, Asuka, blame me…" his hands clutched her shoulders tighter when he felt her trembling. "It was also my responsibility to ensure that every one of you remained upon this path…"

Asuka turned around and lashed out at him, striking at his chest with the heels of her fists. "And you! How _could_ you? You _let_ it happen! You let it _all_ happen! You could have ended it with a _thought_ and you…"

Energy left her, and she collapsed into the boy's arms, trembling on the verge of tears.

"You…you let that thing…you let it _rape me_…"

"I'm sorry, Asuka…" Kaworu embraced her, eyes hidden behind his hair. "You're right…I _should_ have stopped it sooner…I _should_ have seen it coming…I _should_ have been there for you, Asuka. I'm _so_ sorry…"

"Tabris…" Adam's gigantic voice resonated within the expansive depths. "What you _should _have done was _nothing_. Instead, you directly interfered with the Third Child's examination. Your actions on that day border on _treachery_…"

Lilith put a hand on Adam's shoulder. "Have mercy on the boy…he has a human's heart, and feels a human's love…can you not see it?"

Adam crossed his arms, looking unamused.

"Wait…" Shinji spoke up – he was standing next to Rei, and his eyes were still red as they met with his mother's. "I still don't understand…why did you have to…to…to make it look like you…_died_?"

Yui's posture withered and she stepped over to him to envelope him in her arms once again, her maternal instincts momentarily overpowering her will as a scientist. "Oh, Shinji…I wish it didn't have to be this way…but we have enemies. Powerful enemies, who would use the power of the Eva's and the Angels to bring about Armageddon. Naoko and I were on the verge of making a discovery that would mean _everything _in this struggle. We couldn't let SEELE seize control of that. They are _convinced_ that Third Impact is the inevitable fate of humanity…"

"The ones called SEELE are correct…" Adam's voice interrupted her. "Third Impact _is_, inevitably, humanity's fate."

"But not _now_," Yui said with determination. "Not _this_ day. Not for many, many days to come. I intend to watch my family grow to old age and pass onto to future generations of Ikari's…"

She took her son's hand in hers, and reached out to Gendo who obligingly joined hands with her as well.

"If Second Impact has taught me anything…it is that humanity still has a lot to learn before we're ready to join the Angels."

"This is all very sweet…" Mana crossed her arms standing next to Kensuke, now walking easily. "But why exactly did we have to perform this 'test' of yours? And even if we had to…why were _we_ kept in the dark about it? Didn't we have a right to know what we were getting into?"

"But you did…" Ritsuko peered up from the displays that lined the walls – if there was one thing that could divert the woman's attention from both her mother and her idol's apparent resurrection, it was the miracle that they had accomplished here. "You have been fighting for the survival of mankind. That has _never_ not been the case. Were you to have lost any of those battles you fought, humanity as you know it would now be extinct."

"But why?" Hikari asked, her hand in Toji's. "If the Angels are really the good guys, then why did they have to test us? What have we been fighting for? And why would they have…wiped us out if we had failed?"

"Redemption," Naoko Akagi said simply. "We stand accused of the crimes that lead to Second Impact. The past fifteen years has been our judgment. We – humanity – _needed_ to be tested. And as the stakeholders of humanity's future, who better to test than our children?" Her eyes fell on Rei, and she offered a sad smile. "It was not our choice to make…but having observed you all over the past year..." she turned away, catching herself choking. "…we couldn't have asked for better candidates."

"You have done the impossible…" Yui smiled, still seemingly caught up in the wonder of the reality around her. "You have done what _we_ could not. You have _proven_ to the Angels that humanity deserves a second chance. What happened in Antarctica was a _grave_ mistake, a mistake that might have meant the destruction of all humankind on this planet…if you had failed the test."

That caused a stirring among the pilots.

"So, that's it then?" Kensuke asked, sheepishly. "We've saved the world?"

Kaji, who had been silently observing the children's reactions at Misato's side, let out a depressing laugh. "Oh-ho-ho…if only…"

Yui shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid there's still the matter of the seventeenth Angel to contend with. And it is in this that your resolve will be tested to the utmost."

Toji clutched Hikari possessively. Mana squeezed Kensuke's hand. Kaworu's hands remained around Asuka's shoulders, and Shinji stood with Rei even as his mother became more and more of a stranger.

Adam and Lilith spread their arms wide, making an arch over Yui's head with their left and right arm. They opened their mouths and emitted a sonorous cry that was half song, half chant. It was in no language that any there understood, but the words somehow came to their ears as they sang, as though in a ritual.

"_Soon shall it take flight, the thesis of cruel Angels. Stray not from your path, no matter how your heart burns. Child of Sky and Earth, stand tall…and become the legend that you were born to be!_"

As one, as though in a trance, three of the children took a step forward, separating themselves from their brethren, before turning to face them, looks of sadness coming over their faces.

Kaworu, Mayumi, and Rei.

"…What?" Shinji breathed, pupils dilated to miniscule specks in his eyes. He felt his world crushing around him. Was he hearing this correctly? Having slain no small number of Angels since becoming a pilot, would he now be asked to slay his mentor, his comrade, and the love of his life?

"But…" Asuka stuttered, her voice breaking the silence that the others' incredulity trapped them within. "You can't! You're only half-angel! Kaworu, what are you _doing_?"

"Rei…" Shinji felt his voice cracking as he stared into her eyes. He might have seen the sadness in them might have masked his own had it not been for the tears obscuring his view. He had stared down impossible odds, fought of behemoths that could overpower every force in the world. He had always managed to protect her…but never before had he felt so helpless to do so now.

Adam and Lilith both placed their hands on the three Nephilim's shoulders, each touching their respective offspring, with Mayumi in the middle.

"One of you…" Adam's voice was cruel and heartless. "Must embrace your Angelic blood…and forsake humanity."

"_One_ of you?" Asuka blurted, anger in her voice.

Shinji's heart sank even further. "We…we have to…_choose_…?"

The children deflated even more at this news. This should have made things easier, but it didn't. Shinji could no sooner part with Rei than he could part with air and water. But to ask Mayumi to make such a sacrifice…or to ask Kaworu…and to ask Asuka to live without him…

The children stared in shocked stupefaction. One of their friends was going to die.

Ritsuko nodded. "And I'm afraid this is a choice that must be made soon. SEELE will be upon us in a matter of hours. They will not be happy with our escape, and even less so with the disappearance of Lilith. Our cyber defenses will not hold back the storm of the U.N.…nor will it hold back the Dummy Plug system."

Realization filled her eyes as Misato whirled towards the exit. "I've got to get back to Central Dogma! Hyuga and the others can't organize the defense on their own!"

"I believe Commander Tokita has things well in hand for now…" Yui assured the Major before she could bolt towards the door. "Besides, we have a direct feed from here…"

She nodded to Naoko who began punching keys into the console. Within moments, the screen lit up with every single monitor that would have been available on the command bridge, and a video screen displaying the faces of Hyuga, Shigeru, Maya, Aoi, Kaede, Satsuki, and finally Shiro Tokita, each of whom snapped a smart salute as they saw the Major's face appear on their own screens.

"Awaiting your instructions, ma'am!" they each said in unison. Even Tokita, who by now understood the respect Misato commanded among the crew.

Misato took a moment to smile in return, before her face turned serious again. "Where do we stand?"

Shiro crossed his arms in a gesture of cockiness. "We stand fully prepared to meet the entire U.N. Special Forces head on, Major Katsuragi! The JSSDF is more than capable! The U.N. has only been harangued by the Angel s for the past year, while all the while the JSSDF has been slowly rebuilding."

Misato's frown deepened. "That may be so…but what happens when we start seeing _Evangelions_ raining down on us? SEELE has seized _all_ of our Units, and they have _more_ than enough dummy plugs to pilot them all. We have _no way_ to counter them!"

"Misato Katsuragi…" Naoko interrupted, looking cross. "I know you've been seeking revenge on the Angels your whole life, but have heard nothing we've said?"

Misato fixed the old woman with a harsh look. "I'm sorry, Professor, but what about anything you've chosen to reveal in the last twelve hours could help us stave off an army of cloned Angels?"

The Professor's smirk was so palpable, the Major wanted to punch her.

"How about an army of _actual_ Angels?"

There a moment of silence as that statement sunk into everyone's heads. Out of all the stunned faces in the room, it was only Gendo who bore an expression that looked like he wanted to shout 'Eureka' at the top of his lungs.

"Of course!" he gasped.

"What?" Toji blurted. "I don't get it."

Yui sighed. "Perhaps I should explain to the children what I explained to the rest of you… You all have proven humanity's worth to the Angels, but the Angels still seek penance from those individuals directly responsible for Second Impact."

Gendo nodded. "Lorenz Keel…"

Yui waved her arms towards the tanks in which the Angels basked. "Our task as humans was to prove our mettle against the Angels. This task is nearly complete…but in the task of bringing SEELE to heel, well…the Angels are not above some divine intervention…"

Rei turned to meet eyes with Lilith. "The Angels would…would _fight_ for us?"

Adam and Lilith clasped hands. "Just as we waged war on Evangelion, our brothers and sisters shall once again do battle with their earthly counterparts. Watch, and take heed, Children…for should our brethren fall, the nephilim shall be your last line of defense…"

Kaworu, Mayumi and Rei straightened at that. The Angels' meaning was clear. They would fight. Every single Angel they have felled in combat would stand against the dummy controlled Evangelions. They would fight them, just as they fought the children. And should they fall…one of them would have to take on the mantle of the 17th Angel. And then the last angel would be all that remained between survival…and Third Impact.

xxxxx

Maya hoped Ritsuko wasn't overexerting herself. She couldn't begin to imagine the stress of seeing her mother _and_ her idol come back from the dead. She tried, once or twice, to imagine a similar situation from her own perspective, but even though her own mother had died in Second Impact, she couldn't imagine the impact of witnessing both her and Dr. Akagi coming back from the grave, because she couldn't get past the stage of imagining losing Ritsuko to begin with. But her senpai had experienced just that, on top of having to prepare the MAGI against the assault that the U.N. was sending at them.

Though, in all fairness, Professor Naoko Akagi was doing most of the work. Maya may have idolized Ritsuko for her scientific ability, but she was utterly _terrified_ of Ritsuko's mother. This was primarily because, as Naoko was currently demonstrating, the woman became an unthinking, uncaring, cold and calculated killing machine behind a keyboard, unrivalled by any savagery the Eva's could produce. Entire enemy systems were crippled in the wake of her barrage. Firing systems targeted one another, and soon the U.N. was shooting its own planes down. Heating and cooling systems in the enemy facilities failed, machines short circuited, or went haywire and exploded, life support systems completely shut down, and entire facilities self-destructed, leaving their inhabitants to die. Maya envied Hyuga and Shigeru for their lack of training in the finer components of the MAGI computer system, in that they could not comprehend the sheer, unrelenting _butchery_ that was taking place on the field of cyber-warfare between them and the subsidiary NERV branches.

Hell hath no fury like a mother protecting its children.

Another explanation for Hyuga and Shigeru's lack of appreciation for what the MAGI was currently doing was that their attention was focused a hundred percent on the ground battle taking place just outside of NERV on the streets of Tokyo-3. Having all non-military personnel been completely evacuated (not even to the shelters, but all the way out to Tokyo-2), the city was in full fortress mode. Commander Tokita hadn't been kidding when he'd said that the JSSDF had been slowly building up its forces since the Fifth Angel attack. The combined forces of the Japanese Strategic Self Defense Force now amounted to about three times its original manpower from the time of the Third Angel attack, and boasted twice the tonnage in air, ground, and naval craft. It had been designed to repel (and recover from) Angel attacks, and with the demand on resources they were used to absorbing decreased by the shift in the Angel's focus on Germany, they had grown to an impressive degree.

Maya wasn't sure what Hyuga and Shigeru were so worried about. She'd run the specs in her head – the U.N. was attacking with its full force, which had the JSSDF outnumbered two to one. But those numbers counted for very little when she factored in the tactical advantaged provided by the natural valley wherein Tokyo-3 had been built – a fact that had gone into its original planning as a blockade against the Angels. And to even further their odds, the JSSDF knew the U.N. was coming. They didn't even have the element of surprise.

And with the MAGI hacking into the U.N. security and hardware, it wasn't even a fair fight. They would lose just over sixty percent of their forces at most before the U.N. was routed – less, if the U.N. admiralty had any sense, and retreated beforehand.

In a clash between men, this battle was already won.

But then SEELE would drop its Eva units and it would all be over.

Maya had no illusions. She knew the Angels were backing them – as hard as it was to believe, the reality was in keeping with everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. NERV had turned on them. The Eva's had become the tools of their enemies. So naturally, the Angels were now their friends. It made a certain, simplistic kind of sense.

But Evangelion had defeated Angel before. They could beat them again. Though it was true that before it had been one versus all, these Eva's would not be handicapped by a pilot's weakness, indecision, inexperience, or pain threshold. These Eva's would be synchronized at four hundred percent with their dummy plugs. These Eva's would have the advantage of flight. These Eva's would have all the raw, fighting power that lay dormant within the Eva's under normal circumstances, which only ever surfaced when the situation was dire, that had allowed them to persevere, even in single combat, against the Angels.

These Eva's…would be berserkers.

And there would be _nine_ of them.

xxxxx

Shigeru sighed. He was sure that Aoi, Kaede and Satsuki were competent technicians. Why else would they have been hired to fill the positions he, Hyuga and Maya had left? But that had been as a standby crew – they had never seen any actual combat before, as far as he could tell. He appreciated them keeping their seats warm for them, but now that the original bridge bunnies were back, he didn't understand why the Commander hadn't dismissed them. Especially considering that he, Maya and Hyuga had managed just fine on their own.

He soon understood though – not only did the three of them work extremely efficiently as a whole, but they were keenly familiar with the streets of Tokyo-3, a familiarity that Shigeru and his team currently lacked, having spent the last half a year memorizing Munich city streets and rally points and munitions caches and all the other minutia in the German branch.

More than that, Aoi, Kaede and Satsuki were officially working for the JSSDF, and were intimately familiar with their dispersal tactics, command formations and the strengths and weaknesses of each unit. Simply put, they were fighting on home turf, with an experienced team. And home-field advantage meant a lot when each side was pitting every last soldier in reserve at the other.

He spared a glance up at Commander Tokita, who seemed to be rather cool under the circumstances. Shiro Tokita's presence irked him a little. The man wasn't a military leader, he wasn't a scientist – he was a politician with lofty business goals. He hadn't even held that high of an office before the JSSDF had assigned him to the Geo-Front. But now he wielded power equal to Gendo and Yui Ikari – that is, after the two men had butted heads for a while and Yui finally managed to compromise the situation by offering to form a triumvirate.

Shigeru squeezed the bridge of his nose. Now that Commander Yui Ikari was back (all he had heard was that her death had been faked), somehow Commander Gendo Ikari still held his position as well as Commander Tokita. There were now _two _Commander Ikari's, as well as _two_ Doctor Akagi's (although the senior of the two tended to go by "professor" for the sake of telling them apart). All they needed now as for the Third Child to get a doctorate, and she her mother would both be "Professor Soryu."

Still, Commander Tokita knew his crew – that was to say, he knew Aoi, Kaede and Satsuki. His confidence seemed to come solely from his trust in them, and after watching the three women wield the JSSDF special task force like a precision instrument to almost single-handedly decimate the U.N. forces, Shigeru was beginning to understand why Tokita was so at ease. He had been working with the three women for the better part of his career at NERV. It was Shigeru and his two companions that needed to prove themselves to him.

Thankfully, the U.N. had been kind enough to provide them with just such an opportunity.

xxxxx

Makoto was watching with a kind of morbid fascination as U.N. and JSSDF forces threw themselves at one another. He, like the others, had done the math – he knew that the U.N. forces wouldn't last long against the JSSDF. Still, he knew what was coming next – they were a NERV facility with no Eva's. They had no way of repelling an incursion of Evangelion units.

So he threw himself into the ground battle with all the gusto he could muster. If these were to be his last moments on earth, then he could at least spend them saving innocent lives. For all the good it would do, as the consensus seemed to be that the world would be ending soon.

Still, the U.N. was retreating, and with any luck, that many more soldiers would get to see their families one last time before the end. It would have to be enough.

He sat back in his chair, defeated. He felt like their job was over – now, with nothing left to coordinate, their role become one of observation and monitoring. A grim task – they were essentially charged with surveying and describing the exact magnitude of their oncoming doom, and calculate it's ETA.

"Well, gentlemen, it's been fun…"

To Makoto's surprise, it hadn't been his words. He had been about to utter that exact phrase, but had hesitated as to how defeatist it sounded.

To his left, Aoi was passing around plastic cups with little NERV logos on them, and filling them with scotch that looked like it dated back to the pre-impact days. Around her, Kaede and Satsuki were…not smiling, but they didn't seem all too worried either. They looked…proud. Content. At peace.

They knew the end was coming, and they had accepted it.

"Good job out there, Lieutenant," Aoi said to Makoto, handing him a glass. "I saw the way you rerouted the two-oh-third brigade through the Rukongai district; very efficient. You probably shaved a good twenty minutes of fighting off the ground battle."

Makoto accepted the glass, but was hesitant to meet her gaze. "I just…wish they could all realize how pointless all this fighting is. If I could help bring the fight to a conclusion, then maybe I could give them enough time to send one last message home to their families before…before…"

He realized he was crinkling the flimsy plastic cup, and he loosened his grip, but his hands were shaking. He felt himself laughing in despair.

"Hehe…you know…I always thought I'd live to an age where I could retire from this job…maybe move out to the countryside…get married and start a family…"

He felt Aoi's hands come up around his own to steady his grip. Makoto flinched and looked up at her.

She was smiling. There were also tears in her eyes.

"We all have dreams, Lieutenant…and we've all made the same decision…to sacrifice those dreams for the greater good…"

Makoto set his glass down and rubbed at his eyes, ashamed of losing his composure. "Yeah…you're right…I'm sorry…"

Aoi's smile didn't change. "That wasn't a reproach, Lieutenant…everyone is so focused on defeating the enemy…I'm glad to see there's someone who hasn't forgotten what we are…"

He felt her hands clasp hold of his own again. She did not pull away.

"And what are we, Miss Mogami?" Makoto said, an ironic smile on his face. "Soldiers? Stewards? Fugitives from the powers that be?"

Aoi smiled sweetly at him. Makoto had to stop himself from blushing – her dark blue, almost violet hair reminded him of Major Katsuragi, but the slim oval glasses and the beauty mark below her lip were hers alone. And her deep blue eyes were meeting his with a look of genuine kindness that he wasn't at all accustomed to feeling from his peers, much less someone so lovely.

"Human, lieutenant," she said, squeezing his hand in hers. "Human."

xxxxx

Misato was shaking. Not in fear, but anticipation. While the result of this battle would decide the fate of humanity, that did not take away from the fact that Misato was _born _for this job. She had just commanded an entire army to victory against a superpower that had reorganized the entire world government after calamity struck fifteen years ago. But having witnessed the fighting capacity of fourteen Angels that she had previously wanted nothing more than to destroy, each with strengths and abilities as alien to her as the Eva's she had once send into combat, she could not begin to fathom how to command them.

Fortunately, she did now have to.

"The Angels have practiced the art of war for longer than humanity has been alive," Adam had declared, broaching no further debate. "Let us do what we do best."

It was mind numbing, to have to sit back and watch as the Angels fought their war for them. They were soldiers! They weren't meant to sit on the sidelines! Asuka, Mana and Toji were especially restless, which only increased as the horizon began to populate with familiar shapes.

"Those fucking _schweinhunds_! Who do they think they are, using _my _Unit 02 against us!"

Misato bit her lip. There was nothing to it but to observe…and pray.

xxxxx

Like winged Valkyries or horsemen of the apocalypse, the nine dummy controlled Evangelion units flew above the skies of Tokyo-3, heralding the unthinking, uncaring doom and destruction of everything human on Earth. The orange Unit 00, the purple Unit 01, the red Unit 02, the black Unit 03, the silver Unit 04, the green unit 05, the jungle camouflage Unit 06, the desert camouflage Unit 07, and the midnight blue Unit 08. They flew in formation like a flock of geese, each with a set of twelve translucent, spidery wings, ribbed with glowing filament. Each bore an identical weapon – a giant, unwieldy, elongated dual-edged blade. Each stared onward with a glowing pair of red eyes, save Unit 00 and 02, whose respective cyclopean and quad-optical eyes shone just as menacingly.

They were within fifteen miles of Tokyo-3 when the first blow struck. Unit 01, which flew at the head of the squadron, was struck from the air by a beam of pure heat from somewhere too distance for its receptors to pick out. The impact struck it in the chest, scorching its armor, and interrupting its flight path. Unit 01 flailed and fell a few hundred feet before wobbling and regaining control.

Another shot flew past, and the entire squadron broke formation like a swarm of flies, veering off left and right to avoid the barrage incoming projectiles. More shots joined in, some lances of bright white light, some bolts of energy that blew apart the stratosphere when they flew by and struck the cloud bank. Unit 00 took a bolt to the wing and spiraled down to the ground. Unit 07 took a beam of light to the face, and was halted in mid-flight, appearing to fly back and upward, before regaining control. Unit 05 let out a scream as a beam of heated energy severed both of its legs, which did little to halt its flight as they slowly started to regenerate.

As the Eva's approached the drop zone, the shots became more precise. Unit 05 took a bolt straight to the chest that melted through most of its chest plating. Unit 02 lost a wing, and fell to the ground, where it would proceed on foot with Unit 00. A beam took Unit 08's head clean off its shoulders, before it began to flop end over end towards the ground, before slowly regenerating itself. They were at such an altitude that it had time to regrow completely before it hit the ground, and beginning to climb again. Where body parts grew back, there was no armor – just ugly, misshapen flesh, taut and sinuous, that belied the feminine shape underneath.

So focused they were on dodging the onslaught of energy weaponry that the units failed to account for the dramatic change in weather. All around them, the winds were beginning to pick up, and the clouds were beginning to darken. Static electricity began to spark between the units as crackles of lightning began to appear out of thin air.

Unit 03 only detected the threat once it was too late. A bolt of lightning struck it between the shoulders, illuminating its entire body in jolts of power. It let out a shrill scream of agony as electricity travelled through its dummy plug, entering its nervous system and infecting it with an alien consciousness. Its mind began to…degrade, to blur as if in a dream. Its reality began to warp around it as a new consciousness began to take hold. The other Eva's paid Unit 03 no heed as it slowly coasted downward, wings rigid but unmoving, gradually losing altitude as its inner structure began to rewire itself, its phase pattern slowly shifting from orange…to blue.

xxxxx

"Unit 03 is ours."

Kensuke, recalling with sickening horror his own experience with the 13th Angel that had left him crippled, winced as the video feed showed them, in vivid detail, what was happening to Toji's Eva. Despite his revulsion, he recognized the advantage of being able to seize and completely indoctrinate an enemy unit. Even with fourteen against nine, the odds were still against them. The Angels may have had sound tactics, but the way they behaved was completely autonomous. Even when under enemy control, Unit 03 still displayed more intelligence than any Angel he'd ever fought.

The Eva's were built for war.

He had played this game many times before on his computer. It was a simple strategy game called Tower Defense – Tokyo-3 lay at the heart, and oncoming enemy units would come in and try to take it. The object was, using a set number of defenders, to prevent the enemy from taking the base. Only, in those games, the enemy units were usually small, weak, and numerous. They would fall relatively easily and relied on swarm tactics to overwhelm the defenders. The enemies they faced now would constantly regenerate. They could think on their feet. And they fought with the same mindless determination that the Angels displayed.

But Kensuke could see the Angel's strategy. Having seen the Angel's fight, either from post-battle recording or firsthand in his own Eva, he knew how dangerous they were, and he knew what most if not all of their capabilities were. Three of the Angels – Ramiel, Leliel and Armisael, one on top of the other – hovered directly above the epicenter of the Geo-Front. Guarding the epicenter on foot were Sachiel and Zeruel, making use of their long ranged weaponry along with Ramiel's deadly accurate beam weapon, to bombard the attacking Eva's from afar. Along the perimeter were other Angels with close range capabilities – Shamshel, Israfel, and Matarael – to halt the Eva's progress when they got too close to the compound. Underground, Sandalphon moved, unseen, as Gaghiel swam in the lakebed over the Geo-Front, both waiting to spring upon any unsuspecting targets. In orbit, Arael and Sahaquiel lay in waiting as well.

Kensuke pursed his lips, musing. It was a good setup. But that still left the nano-machine Angel unaccounted for.

"Don't worry," Professor Naoko Akagi had assured him when he asked where this Angel was. "Iruel has been in the fight longest of all – in fact, half of my success with the MAGI is thanks to Iruel's help. I'm good, but even a program can't supersede a manual override. If not for Iruel…the Geo-Front would have been hit with every N2 Mine in the U.N.'s arsenal, and we'd be defending the Geo-Front from open sky."

Kensuke nodded. It was the perfect setup. Each Angel was deployed to maximize their strengths. This was their best chance of success. So why was he so sure they would lose?

The Eva's cunning is what worried him. When faced with odds like this, he and his comrades would have usually been able to think of a strategy to overcome the Angels given enough time. And time was working against them here – all they could really do was to push the Eva's back. They were refusing self-destruct codes that the MAGI was sending them, and even if an Angel self-destructed at point blank range, it wouldn't stop an Eva.

But capturing Unit 03 had been fortunate.

"Can any of the other Angels seize control of an Evangelion the way the Thirteenth Angel just did?" Kensuke asked aloud.

It was Lilith who answered. "Arael of the Birds and Armisael of the Womb both possess the means to assume control of Evangelion."

Kensuke nodded. If they were each successful in taking control of an Eva – perhaps of Unit's 00 and 02, who had been downed and separated from the rest of the Eva's – that would tip the scales in their odds, from nine against fourteen to six against seventeen.

As if he'd read his mind, Adam addressed Kensuke directly – a concept that he was not entirely comfortable with. "Such action carries risk, Seventh Child. Do you not see the pattern emerging?"

Kensuke gulped. The two Angels in their midst had such clashing dynamics. While Lilith simply radiated warmth and comfort, and it felt almost natural speaking familiarly with her, like a mother, Adam was fearsome, stringent, and unforgiving, broaching no argument when he spoke, like a judgmental father who looked on ever disapprovingly at whomsoever he turned his eyes upon.

That said, he could scarcely muster up the courage to meet Adam's gaze, much less reply. He squeezed Mana's hand, which had never left his since they'd arrived in Terminal Dogma and shook his head, meekly.

"This one has only known of this world, beloved," Lilith said, smiling at Kensuke. She turned her eyes to Shinji. "It is the Second Child who has born witness to _That Which Should Be_."

Shinji looked about as confused as Kensuke felt.

"You keep talking about that," Mana grumbled, as though she felt about as useless as everyone in the room felt without their Eva's. "What exactly is '_That Which Should Be_?'"

It was Ritsuko who spoke next. "Do you believe in fate, Pilot Kirishima?"

Mana shrugged. "Normally, I'd say no…but recent events have really caused me to question that belief. But only because I feel helpless to change my fate sometimes…"

Ritsuko smiled. "Oh, you have, Mana. You've all done a great deal to change fate."

"All this has been pre-ordained," Adam said, his booming voice capturing the attention of all. "And yet…it is different…"

Lilith captured Gendo's gaze. "Just as you planned for every scenario, we too made plans for what should transpire if _That Which Should Be_ were averted."

"Fate…" Kensuke muttered, putting the pieces together. "_That Which Should Be_ is our predetermined fate. And we're…circumventing it, somehow. Or at least, we're trying to."

"You've come a long way from _That Which Should Be_," Adam nodded. "However, every step you take has been and shall be influenced by _That Which Should Be_, like gravity, forever drawn back towards the original lines embedded in time."

"This can work to our advantage," Lilith explained. "As Arael was Unit 02's destined opponent, as was Armisael to Unit 00, just as was Bardiel to Unit 03, fate will unaccountably shift to try to allow these individuals to come into contact."

"But there is a risk as well," Adam warned. "Each step taken towards _That Which Should Be_ draws you ever closer to being unable to escape its outcome. If you are not cautious…fate will conspire to bring things to pass which have been painstakingly avoided. Sacrifices would be made that might yet have been averted. Alliances would shatter that might yet have been held. And humanity might yet fall having fought so hard to remain."

Kensuke gritted his teeth. "So the fact that Unit 00 and 02 were the ones that got grounded wasn't a coincidence at all. They were fated to encounter the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Angel all along."

Adam seemed impressed by Kensuke's deduction. "Precisely. As noted, it is a double edged sword. When it befits our goals, we might use it to our advantage. But each allowance we make for it brings us that much closer to Third Impact."

Kensuke managed a wry smile. "And I'm guessing that only you and Lilith know precisely what _That Which Should Be _consists of? I mean, we know it ends in Third Impact, but everything else about it, every little detail…is only known to you?"

Adam smiled. "I like this one, beloved…he seems to be garnering an understanding."

Kensuke blushed. Sometimes it didn't pay to be the smart one, he thought. Then Mana kissed his cheek and he felt himself smiling. It was all nervous energy, he knew. Better to talk and try to understand than do nothing after all. He knew it was high praise coming from an Angel, but having spent his entire life in fear of them, it was hard to overcome that fear now. Ever harder to think of them as friends.

He put his arms around Mana's waist and squeezed her against himself. He wasn't sure about their odds of survival. But if these were his last moments on Earth, they weren't so bad as long as he had her with him.

xxxxx

Before the Eva's were within five miles of the city, Ramiel's precision laser had clipped the last of their wings. Although they could have grown them back, the sentience within the dummy plugs – the same brutal efficiency that Rei employed time and time again in battle – deduced that the quickest path lay in traversing the rest of the distance on foot.

It was then that the real brutality began.

Having gone down at different times, the Eva's were all split up. Unit 01 was in the lead, followed closely by Unit 04 and Unit 08. No sooner had they cleared the lip of the valley that surrounded Tokyo-3 then they started taking fire again, bounding through trees and suburban neighborhoods, moving nimbly on their feet to avoid the energy blasts coming at them. The Eva's all had scars to show for their aerial approach. Unit 04's unarmored arms were still smoldering after having recently regenerated, and Unit 08's head was completely bare, an ugly, misshapen, hairless grimace of pain and anger. Unit 01 was largely untouched, save for a crater in its left-side chest plate and a huge, vertical crack in its faceplate that left its right eye exposed and glaring fiercely.

The Eva's moved quickly to dodge the Angel's beam weaponry. At fifteen miles, the power had been lessened from the distance. At this range, the shots were blowing craters in the side of the mountain ridge. Unit 04 leapt clear of a blast from Zeruel's optic cannon that punctured the ground beneath it to rubble. Unit 08 was blown backwards by one of Sachiel's eye beams. Unit 01 made a beeline straight for the city, and attempted to stand its ground while Ramiel's powerful laser hammered the Eva's AT field.

As the ground crumbled beneath Unit 01's feet, it stood there, taking the punishment as the beast swung its massive blade weapon, rearing back, its armor melting in the heat. With a mighty roar, Unit 01 flung the blade with uncanny accuracy towards Ramiel. The weapon spun like a dart, stopping point first in the middle of the Fifth Angel's AT field.

The weapon transformed.

And just like that, the Angels had lost their first piece.

xxxxx

"What the hell?" Toji blurted, seeing the enemy spears twist into, for all purposes, what appeared to be a _weaker_ looking weapon, and then somehow puncturing their AT fields like they were saran wrap. The lance had hit the blue, octahedral Angel, bringing it to the ground, before cracking like a broken mirror, and the liquefying into LCL.

There was a shattering sound, and everyone turned their heads to see Ritsuko, who had just dropped her mug of coffee to the floor.

"The Lance of Longinus…" she stammered. "SEELE has…_mimicked_ the Lance of Longinus. Against that…the Angels have _no defense_…"

The other scientists did not seem quite as concerned. The pilots, on the other hand, were simply confused.

"The heck is a Lance of Longinus?" Toji demanded.

Naoko was rather calm despite the death of Ramiel. "Sorry, I forget to tell you all…the Lance of Longinus is an artifact recovered from the south pole after Second Impact. We were never certain of its purpose, but we know that it has the power to pierce an AT field."

"The Lance of Longinus was designed to imprison us," Adam said, an unmistakable tinge of anger in his voice. "That the ones called SEELE would make _others_…"

All the pilots shrank away from the Angel as the room radiated his rage. Lilith placed a hand on Adam's shoulder and he closed his eyes, his face calming to the mere sternness it had exhibited before, and the room became quiet once more.

Naoko cleared her throat. "The timing of our discovery of the Lance was a little too coincidental, however. I theorized that the only reason SEELE let us have the lance was because they had managed to replicate it. That is how SEELE does things – whenever they come across something of value, they find a way to mass produce it so that the original holds no more power. It is a kind of entropy – when all things are equal, no one has the power to rise up and fight back against those holding the reigns."

"But what about the Angel?" Hikari asked, anxiety in her voice. "It came back to life once before…can't it come back again?"

Lilith smiled sweetly at the girl. Out of all the pilots, she was the only who had voiced concern for the Angel's safety. "It is a process that takes time, too much time to make a difference now. It would also require that we collect the core, and that is a risky prospect in the midst of a battlefield. It would not be a good idea to divert our attention from the battle to try to salvage one core. The less we concentrate on the battle, the more Angels are likely to fall as Ramiel of the Thunder has."

"But the Eva's have these damn lances now!" Toji protested. "They can each kill an Angel with a single hit! How are we supposed to fight against that?"

It was Adam who spoke. "This was not unforeseen. Fear not, Fourth Child. We are far from defeated."

Toji crossed his arms, unconvinced. "How come we didn't get weapons like these when we were fighting the Angels? These lances could have saved us a lot of trouble."

"Were your trials to be simple, they would be no trials at all," Adam justified.

"And do you really think SEELE would let us have something so valuable?" Naoko smiled, ironically.

"What is this…SEELE you keep talking about?" Hikari asked. "Are they the ones in charge of NERV? What are they trying to achieve by doing this?"

Naoko closed her eyes. "Who are SEELE…oh, where to start?"

Yui turned away from her console. "I'll take this question. SEELE has existed for hundreds of years – or so most sources believe. They are a collection of the most influential political and social figures in the world, each with the information networks, money and resources capable of starting a war. They are bound together by a collective ideology garnered from the Dead Sea scrolls that humanity is destined for the final stage in its evolution. They see Third Impact as the instrumentality of mankind, the compliment with which humankind rises to the level of the Angels, and joins together as one. This is an event predicted and interpreted by religious texts worldwide, and has been heralded by many to be the apocalypse of human life on Earth."

The pilots remained silent, stirring uneasily at this prospect.

Toji clutched Hikari to him, protectively. "This is the real deal, isn't it? This is what we've been fighting for all this time. All that talk about the world ending if the Angels make it into NERV…_that_ would have been Third Impact, right? And the people in charge of NERV…these SEELE people…they _want_ Third Impact to happen? But why have us fight the Angels at all then?"

Naoko wrinkled her nose. "Perhaps you didn't hear me when I spoke of SEELE's methods. SEELE does wants Third Impact, but they want it on _their_ terms. If Impact is brought about through any of the seventeen Angels, humanity would come together as dictated in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But if Impact were brought about through an Angel that _we_ created…"

Naoko's eyes turned to gaze upon Rei.

"…Then SEELE would hold dominion over all of humanity."

Rei's eyes widened and she began to shudder. It all made sense now. The tests, her connection to Eva, the truth of her birth. All of it was so that she could fulfill this role.

Tears filled her eyes. "This…this is my purpose?"

Ritsuko, Yui and Gendo could only look away in shame.

Naoko nodded gravely. "I'm afraid so, Rei…you were designed to be the key to SEELE's control over Third Impact."

Rei looked ready to collapse. But before she could, Shinji's arms clasped around her shoulders. "Not anymore, Rei. No one gets to make that decision for you. Nobody has the right to – Rei, look at me!"

The blue haired girl, lost in thought, drew in a sharp breath at Shinji's words.

"Do you hear me?" the boy said, commandingly. "You are you! You're not a tool, you're not a doll, and you're not some _thing_ to be used for someone else's gain! You have a life in front of you, just like the rest of us! And _you_ decide what to do with it! You, and nobody else! Do you understand me?"

Rei was still shuddering. But her eyes were on Shinji's, and she nodded and nestled her head under his.

"Shinji…"

"This was our folly," Gendo sighed, his arm around Yui. "We made the mistake of playing God in Antarctica…and instead of stopping there, we pressed on."

"If it's any consolation, it wouldn't just have to be Rei," Naoko said dismissively, paying her adoptive daughter's disquiet little heed. "The Fifth and Ninth Child would work just as well…"

She gestured at Kaworu and Mayumi, who returned her stare bleakly. Asuka wrapped an arm around Kaworu's waist, a look of challenge in her eyes that Naoko ignored completely.

"In SEELE's ideal world, one of you would die as an Angel, one of you would conduct Instrumentality, and the last would ascend to the heavens with the rest of humanity. Life, death, and rebirth."

"While in the Angel's ideal world, one of us would simply have to die…" Kaworu said somberly.

Before anyone could respond, Adam's voice echoed off the wide, expansive walls.

"Arael of the Birds is attacking."

All eyes went to the screen as Unit 02, bathed in light, reeled over in pain, its jaw ripping its armored mouth guard open to release a frantic cry of agony and rage. Its body twisted over backwards, throwing its head back to land on the limestone terrain, its fingers clawing into its own face as though trying to dig a parasite out of its own brain.

Asuka winced in sympathetic pain and squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers digging into Kaworu's arm as she looked away. Kaworu's other arm came protectively around her as he watched the Evangelion break under the onslaught of the Angel's psychic invasion.

Finally, at last, the machine went limp.

"Unit 02 is ours."

xxxxx

More Eva's stormed over the ridge and descended into the valley of Tokyo-3. Sachiel was wrestling with Unit 01 and losing. Shamshel had its tentacles wrapped around Unit 05, Gaghiel had leapt from the lakebed to close its jaws around Unit 04 and drag it back underwater like an orca hunting a sea lion. Israfel had taken a lance directly to its core and never even had the chance to split in half before it erupted in a blaze of fire. Sandalphon had opened up a hole in the earth and was slowly dragging Unit 08 underground. Matarael had been squashed like the spider it resembled and Unit 06 and 07 both entangled in Zeruel's ribbon whips, constricting them like a snake, their armor buckling under the pressure.

Unit 01 methodically shattered Sachiel's arms and began pummeling its core bare fisted, forgoing its lance. The massive bio-weapon ripped a piece of the Angel's ribcage off of its body, and began chiseling away at the Angel's core. The Third Angel, broken and defeated, leapt onto Unit 01's body and wrapped itself up into a ball, pressing its ruptured core against Unit 01's face.

There was a great explosion, and Unit 01 walked through the smoldering wreckage with barely a thought.

Another step towards _That Which Should Be_.

Above them, Leliel and Armisael watched impassively, hovering well above reach as the battle continued, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. The Eva's still hadn't reached the epicenter of Tokyo-3, and at that moment, Unit 02 and Unit 03 came bounding over the ridge to join the fray. The black Eva had a twisted look on its face, its entry plug bound up in thick, blue webbing. The red Eva seemed to have gouged its own eyes out in torment as Arael had burrowed into its consciousness. The eyes were slowly growing back, but the goggles in its mask had been shattered, revealing a deadly, four-eyed blaze of anguish peering out from underneath.

By this time, Unit 04 had embedded its lance into Gaghiel's whale-like body, and was shambling out of the lakebed. Unit 05 had likewise dealt with Shamshel, and the two Eva's turned to face the Angel-controlled bio-mechs with immediate recognition in their eyes. With ferocious growls, the silver and green Eva's bounded towards the black and red ones, colliding in mid-air and wrestling each other to the ground.

Unit 00, with no living Angel free to oppose it, made its way to the center of town, barreling down paved city streets, heedlessly upsetting cars and power lines alike. Zeruel, still constricting the life out of Unit 06 and 07, took a pot shot at the Eva with its optic cannon, and managed to level fourteen buildings with one shot, but Unit 00 was bounding too quickly for the Angel to hit. Above, Leliel and Armisael loomed as Unit 00 neared the epicenter. Its blade began to transform in its hands, shifting and twisting into a mockup of the Lance of Longinus. It planted its feet and took aim.

One step.

Two steps.

Three…

It hurled the lance into the sky at a high, steep angle, aimed directly at the Angels hovering overhead.

Leliel simply vanished. Armisael's double helix shape solidified into a bright worm of light and curled around the spear like a beam of positrons. The twisting Angel coiled and continued onward, embedding itself in Unit 00's stomach, while Leliel, no longer afloat, appeared as a shadow that covered the whole ground.

But those two Angels had never been Unit 00's target.

The clouds parted. The lance flew higher and higher, until it reached the heavens. Arael had seen the attack coming, and yet…something had drawn it towards the oncoming spear, as if the hand of fate had somehow twisting reality to suit its needs. The Angel's AT field gave way like tissue paper, and Arael was no more.

xxxxx

"My Evangelion!"

Asuka's cry was palpable. Even as she spoke, Angel and Eva alike was rolling and tumbling at the explosion that had once been Unit 02. Rather than let Unit 02 free to continue fighting, Arael's last act on Earth had been to overload Unit 02's core and detonate. Even as Asuka ground her teeth with rage, the red Evangelion that she had grown up with and loved was blown to atoms.

Meanwhile, Unit 00, its core at the mercy of Armisael's infectious whip-like body, was thrashing and tugging at the Angel's body as it embedded itself further into the Eva's core. Where the Angel touched the Eva's body, the pigment slowly began to change in color from yellow to blue as the Eva struggled, the city slowly sinking into the ground all around them.

"Unit 00 is ours," Adam announced.

"It is accelerating," Lilith said, forebodingly. "See how Unit 00's likeness changes color? _That Which Should Be_ is catching up to us. Arael should not have fallen."

"Neither should have my Eva!" Asuka growled, angrily.

"She was no longer _your_ Eva, Third Child," Lilith said, not unkindly. "She was a tool of the enemy. And even under our control, she is still no match against the Berserker. Look…"

Asuka turned back to face the screen. Even as Lilith spoke, Unit 03 was being strangled to death by Units 04 and 05, its four spidery arms flailing futilely as it slowly began to die.

"At best, our control simply removes the enemy units from the equation, nothing more," Lilith said, sympathetically. "Over the years, you have developed a strong tie to your Evangelion. You are a warrior, Third Child, and so feel kinship with that which is designed to be the warrior's ultimate tool. But even as you feel sorrow at her passing, know that she died as she had lived, and that she has passed on fighting for you, my child."

Asuka bit her lip. It was a bitter truth…but a truth she could live with. Assuming they all survived. She turned her attention to the screen and watched as the remaining Eva's and Angels sank into the black pool of Leliel's shadow.

"How long will that hold them?" she asked, praying that her Eva's sacrifice would not be in vain.

"Not long, I fear," Kaworu said beside her. "The Sea of Dirac is enough to hold the other units…but not Unit 01."

"What makes Unit 01 so special?" Asuka demanded, incredulously. "It was the last one to go down when they were flying, and it's beaten every Angel it's gone up against. Why is Unit 01 so damn powerful?"

"Because Unit 01 is of _my_ blood," Lilith answered, simply.

"All other units were cloned using Adam's DNA," Ritsuko elaborated, still typing away at her computer. "Only Unit 01 was made using Lilith's DNA."

"Why?" Asuka asked, truly puzzled. "And what difference does it make? How does having a different Angel's blood make it more powerful?"

Lilith appeared to sigh. "Child, I am the mother of all humanity. Adam may have brought about the first Angel, but _I_ brought about the first man. It is _man_ that has dominated the Earth over the millennia, not Angels. It is _man_ that committed the first sin that brought about Second Impact. And it is _man_ for whom we fight here today."

"And it is Lilith within whom the world shall reunite," Adam went on. "I am that I am, but it is Lilith within whom lies man's power – Eva's power – to grow, to overcome, to surpass. Within each Eva lies a fraction of man's power, distilled from man's blood and my own. But within Unit 01, the whole of that power exists – between man's blood and that of Lilith."

Yui took over the explanation. "What it boils down to is that human beings are simply better at warfare. The Angels may have more experience, but we were designed to be task driven, goal oriented creatures, and things like fighting come naturally to us. This is consequently part of why you've all been so successful in defeating the Angels up until now – because you all have a natural-born advantage over them. But this works against us in this case, because with their half human genome, the Eva's, when pushed to capacity as they do when they go berserk, can consistently outperform the Angels. This is even more of a disadvantage because Lilith – and consequently, Unit 01 – are even more similar in makeup to human beings than the other Eva's. Because of that, Unit 01 is able to accomplish that which would be impossible for Adam, the other Eva's, and all the other Angels. And it is for this reason that Unit 01 is our deadliest opponent. Unit 01…is a true, human-Angel hybrid – a contradiction against reality."

Even as they spoke, the orb-like "shadow" of Leliel began to quiver and turn completely black as a fist belonging to Unit 01 punched the body open from the inside, and began to tear its way out of the its black, inter-dimensional prison. Leliel's body began to come away in tatters, all the while, the shadow on the ground began to crack and rupture. As Unit 01 clawed its way to freedom and landed with an earth shattering smash on the ruined Angel beneath it, the remaining Angels and Eva units began to crawl out of the depths.

"So if you're so powerful," Asuka pointed an accusatory finger at Lilith, "How come neither of you are up there fighting with the other Angels?"

Leliel's tattered body lay decimated, as Unit 01 stood at the head of a phalanx of Evangelions, down by only three. The line of bio-mechs faced off against Zeruel, the last Angel on its feet. Below them, Sandalphon still prowled, and high above them, Sahaquiel waited patiently, heedless of the fall of its sister, Arael. And standing before Zeruel, its armor now an inexplicable shade of true blue, stood Unit 00, a lance in its hands.

Adam and Lilith both spread their arms and spoke with one voice. "Because we have already surrendered our souls."

The Eva's jaw opened, shattering its mouthpiece to reveal a long tongue protruding through a row of wicked yellow teeth. It emitted a horrendous, primeval roar…then charged.

xxxxx

Thousands of miles away, another battle was being fought. Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu was trying to stave off probably the cleverest computer hacker she had ever encountered. She had been at it non-stop for the past thirty-six hours, and she was losing ground exponentially. Something about the attack pattern was reminiscent of her old partner. If she didn't know better, she would have thought Naoko Akagi had come back from the grave. But no, there was also something…alien about the way her computers systematically shut themselves down. The way it was behaving, it wasn't just a virus; it was more like…a cancer.

Meanwhile, her husband was busy regrouping the U.N. troops. The ground forces hadn't lasted nearly as long as he'd predicted. Whoever was directing the JSSDF must have either been a genius, or had some ace that he hadn't known about up their sleeve. Either way, about halfway through the fight, he had seen their inevitable demise, and ordered the retreat. It went against his orders, but he wasn't throwing away lives pointlessly. Besides, his daughter was in that compound. He may not have confidence in the JSSDF, but he _definitely _did not trust SEELE with her life.

Besides, the fight was out of his hands in any case. The Eva's were effectively a special task force that operated independent of a central command. He had no way to communicate with their pilots, if they even had pilots – his wife had been offering him some troubling theories in regard to that. It was for this reason that he did what he could to cover up her activities from the higher ups.

She was working on something. He wasn't sure what, but his wife was a genius, and he knew that she would never let their daughter fight alone. So he played the role of the obedient commander, mobilized the U.N. forces with the skill expected of a decorated veteran, snapped a salute for SEELE, and let his wife work in secrecy.

And then the virus had hit them, and it was all Kyoko could do to keep the facility still functioning. All at once, their operational effectiveness dropped from a hundred percent to just under forty percent. And they were the lucky ones – by all reports, every other NERV facility around the world had completely shut down. As it was, they were hanging on by a thread – a thread held haphazardly by the skin of Professor Soryu's teeth. From what he could deduce from the sound the muffled curses and shouts of rage emitting from the com link whenever he tried to speak with her, it was almost as if that nano-machine Angel she had helped to destroy had somehow inexplicably come back to life…

That was when the facility lost primary power. Red emergency lights illuminated the command center, but half their equipment was nonfunctional. Ryota Soryu sighed and got to his feet, a convincingly somber expression on his face.

"Men," he said to the command crew on the bridge. "The facility has been compromised. I'm initiating protocol 1377 – we're evacuating this facility."

He was met with odds looks from his crew. Most commanders would have simply held their ground until they restored power. They still had life support after all. Even so, everyone who had ever known Commander Soryu in the past knew him to be the embodiment of pigheaded stubbornness. Waving the white flag was certainly within his rights as commander, but it was still dramatically unexpected.

Commander Soryu tipped his hat. "It's been an honor serving with you, men. God speed."

He stepped down and left the command of NERV Germany to take care of itself. His immediate subordinates bumbled in confusion, having only recently come into their positions since Commander Ikari's upheaval. He let them squabble as he made his way towards the central computer terminal where Professor Soryu toiled endlessly. As he strode by, he heard sirens begin to blare, as evacuation orders began to resonate through speakers in the hall. Footsteps pounded the metal floors as he walked past, calmly and resolutely. This would be one less facility at SEELE's disposal once the die was cast.

He found Kyoko half buried in wires and ductwork, her head submerged as she wrestled with components and switches and every manner of electrical device within her reach, with no less than seven laptop computers open and running in there with her, their wires threading out every which way. It seemed, despite being taken over, she still wasn't giving up. Ryota smiled. There was a reason he had married this woman.

That's when he noticed a flickering screen above the control console his wife was currently embedded in. The screen displayed only static, but every other second, it flickered an image. As he peered closer, he could have sworn the image was of…a person.

He furrowed his brow. "Honey?"

"Not now, dear…" Kyoko said, no small amount of irritation in her voice. He wondered idly how much sleep she'd obtained in the last forty-eight hours.

"Honey…" Ryota said, as the image began to take shape. "I really think-"

"I said _not now_!" she barked loudly, before her tone immediately turned back into sugar. "…dear…"

The image was of a face. That much was clear. A face that was trying to speak to a camera, it seemed. A face that…he recognized.

"Umm…Honey…" Ryota stammered, warily. He had commanded fleets to overtake nations. He had been the U.N.'s top military strategist, having braved the wrath of a post-impact world bent on destroying itself. At one point in his career, he had settled disputes across the entire west coast with only three ships. But before the prospect of the wrath of Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, he was petrified.

"Argh! _What?_" Kyoko snapped, withdrawing her head from the chaos of wires beneath the control console, her hair a tangled sweaty mess and her eyes twitching and bloodshot from overuse. "I am _literally_ keeping seventeen hundred relays from going offline, restoring power to vital systems, _and_ setting up self-repairing firewalls, _all_ while simultaneously wrestling primary control of the facility from whatever it is that's trying to hack into us! But by all means, _tell me_, what's so important?"

Commander Soryu felt the blood drain from his face. Before he could defend himself however, each light on the control console lit up in a strange orange color that he'd never seen them display before.

He knew what that color indicated. Complete system failure.

Kyoko looked up from her laptop and made a sound normally only made by bears. Angry ones.

"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Great! _Fantastic_! Now I have to start from _square one_! I hope whatever you've got to say is…"

She stopped her tirade as she caught sight of the screen Ryota was staring at. As the flickering died down to a dull static, the face resolved itself into…

"Professor Akagi?"

The doctor on the other end of the line looked about half as haggard as Kyoko herself did.

"_Finally_!" the senior professor let out a sigh of relief. "God, you really don't let up, do you Professor? It took me _hours_ get into your system so I could secure this channel and speak to you without SEELE eavesdropping on us, and _that_ was with the help of an Angel made entirely out of nanites! Do you mean to tell me that you've been single-handedly defending the German branch's MAGI computer system this whole time?"

Kyoko, never too caught off guard to find an excuse to boast, simply flipped her hair back, the effect of which was somewhat lessened by her decidedly fatigued appearance. "Hmph. Who do you think I am, anyway?"

Commander Soryu stood beside his wife. "Professor? Are we speaking to a ghost?"

Naoko Akagi tacked at some keys on her keyboard. "In another hour or two, you might be. The Eva's have laid siege to us at NERV headquarters. For the time being, know that SEELE wants us all dead, and that everyone on NERV's current most-wanted list, including your daughter and all the rest of the pilots, are holed up here in Tokyo-3."

"Asuka?" Kyoko blurted out upon hearing her words. "Is she there with you now?"

"Mama?" a familiar voice sounded over the intercom. "Daddy?"

"Asuka, my dear child!" The redheaded woman seemed to shed about twenty or thirty pounds as an enormous weight lifted form her shoulders. Although she put on the brave face in light of their daughter's absence, that didn't change the fact that her child had been in danger, and she'd been next to powerless to help. "You're safe!"

Asuka smiled, but it was a weak smile. "As safe as anyone can be under the circumstances. I'd feel a lot safer if I still had my Eva. But what about you? With me and the other pilots missing, you and Daddy stand to hold a good deal of the blame. Has SEELE done anything to either of you?"

"We're both fine, _Schukiputzi_," Ryota said, clasping a hand over Kyoko's shoulder as their daughter came into view. "SEELE has put me charge of NERV again."

Asuka blinked. "That's how SEELE punishes families of deserters?"

Kyoko smiled wryly. "Actually, they assume to use _you_ as leverage to ensure our cooperation."

Asuka met her mother's grin with her own. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mama. But the truth is we're sitting ducks in here without our Eva's."

Kyoko's smile widened. "Actually, I was hoping to talk to Professor Akagi about that…"

Naoko shoved her head next to Asuka's. "What's that? Have you found a way to override the dummy plugs?"

Naoko shook her head. "No, that was the first thing I tried. They wouldn't accept a boson-frequency interrupt key signature, and I tried a cryptographic marker compound, but nothing worked."

"What about a phase-transition envelope?"

"Of course. What do you take me for, a post-doc? Anyway, that got me thinking…if dummy plugs are based on a simple point-command procedural code, why couldn't we use that same principle to allow for an inter-dispersal mode charge?"

Professor Akagi furrowed her brow. "How would that work if the dummy plugs don't accept single-access codes?"

"Not for the dummy plugs…for a specially designed set of entry plugs that receive phase point frequencies as their primary ignition sequence?"

Asuka scratched her head. "Wait, wait…hold on. My major was particle physics, so my bio-mechanical engineering is a bit rusty…could you maybe back up a few steps?"

Professor Akagi frowned, ignoring the pilot. "But how would that help us? Unless…these readings…these approach vectors…did you…?"

"Successfully manage to install them in the production units just before launch? _All_ nine of them?" Professor Soryu trilled with a self-adulating smile on her face. "Go ahead, you can say it. You know it's the truth."

Naoko's eyes were wide. "Professor Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, you are a miracle worker!"

"I would have preferred 'genius,'" Kyoko smirked, "But I suppose 'miracle worker' will have to do…"

"Umm, hello?" Asuka interrupted the two Doctors. "English, German, Japanese…any of these languages, if you would please?"

Naoko shoved past a rather irate Asuka, and grabbed for Misato, looking panicked and jubilant all at once.

"Major Katsuragi!" she squawked in excitement. "Do you remember where the simulation chamber is?"

Misato started at the mad woman's approach, blinking in surprise. "Uhhh….yeah, but how is the training room supposed to help us?"

"Just take the pilots there and I'll explain once you get there!" Naoko rushed back to her computer. "Professor Soryu, I assume you have the necessary programming?"

"I'm sending them over as we speak," the redhead declared. "I just hope this channel is really as safe as you say it is."

"It is - you have my word…" Naoko reassured her, and then turned to look at the pilots. "What are you all standing around for? Didn't you hear me? Get your plug suits and get to the simulation chamber! Double time!"

The pilots ran for the exit.

xxxxx

Unit 00 lay crippled and dying at the feet of Unit 04. It let out one last dying gasp as its core overloaded, and the detonation was enough to wipe out anything that resembled a city inside Tokyo-3. Heedless of the wanton carnage and destruction, Zeruel was single handedly dissecting each Eva that approached it. With a sweep of its razor sharp ribbon arms, it took the legs out from under Unit 06 and 07. With another slash, it slit Unit 05 in half at the waist, its body landing with a pained thud as it slowly crawled with its arms alone towards the Angel. Zeruel fired its optical cannon as Unit 08 got too close, and the Eva's head came off its shoulders, and the body continued to approach the 14th Angel, mindlessly.

The mighty Zeruel was backed into a corner, surrounded on all sides by Eva's. With a noise of desperation, Zeruel's arms melded together into a single, elongated blade that it brought about in a single swipe that cut through every Eva unit before it. Every Eva fell in a technicolor heap of pieces and bits that all became dyed red as they hit the ground with dull wet thuds. The ground was so littered with body parts, that what had once been Tokyo 3 was now little more than a shallow pool of Angel and Eva blood, littered with broken limbs and body parts.

Then the Earth began to shake. The ground beneath Zeruel cracked open, and from the ground erupted Unit 01, clutching the broken body of Sandalphon, which had taken Unit 01 underground while Zeruel dealt with the rest. The mech was so covered in mud and blood that it was barely recognizable as an Eva. With a mighty growl, Unit 01 ripped the Angel in half, tearing its body apart by its arms. The Angel melted into a shower of LCL that splashed into the sea of red it stood in. The Eva threw back its head and emitted an ear-splitting howl of triumph that shook the very foundation of the Geo-Front.

Zeruel, most powerful of the Angels, knew fear in that moment. _That Which Should Be_ was painted, inescapably in its head, and it knew it could be undone. It unleashed its optical cannon and took off Unit 01's right arm above the elbow. The Angel then withdrew its bladed tendril and sent the blade flying towards Unit 01. But even the mighty Zeruel was no match for fate. The Evangelion caught the ribbon in its hand, slicing it to pieces with its fingers. The Eva grabbed the ribbon and yanked the Angel off the ground and slamming into the Eva's body, Unit 01's horn stabbing the Angel's hollow, skeletal eye. With a savage rumble of rage in its throat, the Eva delivered a fearsome kick, separating the ribbon from the Angel's body. Unit 01 fused the ribbon to the stump of its own arm, regrowing itself faster than ever before.

Then it proceeded to devour the Angel, and Zeruel's life went out.

With the last of the Angels defeated, Sahaquiel was already falling from the sky in a last ditch effort to delay the inevitable. As Unit 01 ripped and ate at Zeruel's bloody meat, feasting on its core despite the existence of an S2 already in its bowels, the clouds parted above and the enormous body of the Angel plummeted to the Earth.

Unit 01 turned its eyes to the sky and saw the oncoming Angel. Twelve skeletal wings erupted from its back as Unit 01 expanded its AT field. The Angel blood pooling around it parted from the energy emanating from Unit 01's body like the proverbial red sea, leaving only blood stained carnage to stand upon. The Eva lifted a single arm in the air, now wielding the strength of two cores fused together, and generated an AT field high in the sky that stretched across the whole of Tokyo-3. Sahaquiel's body never made it within a mile of the ground, before Unit 01's AT surrounded it and crushed it like an eggshell.

And just like that, the Angels were no more.

xxxxx

Nine black Eva carriers flew above the wreckage of Tokyo-3. The city was now a pool of blood and wreckage, a sea of LCL. At the center stood Unit 01, with the other Eva's units crawled around it, broken, battered and mostly limbless, but still alive and slowly, slowly regenerating. Unit 01 was focusing it's AT field downward, edging it into a sharp, drill-like point, beginning to dig into the outer shell of the Geo-Front.

The carriers banked when their pilots saw the drop zone, their cargo bays slowly coming open.

"_This, Asuka, is my gift to you…_" her mother had told her. "_It's my gift to all of you._"

Beneath the carriers, nine white snake-like heads peeked out from their nests inside. Their entry plugs lay open and exposed, nine slim blue tubes, each numerically labeled, following a single line of text.

"_Special Remote Entry Plug._"

xxxxx

"Ugh…" Asuka whined in the simulator plug, looking through the screen at the image provided through the Mass Production Eva Unit's cameras. "These things are ugly as _fuck_!"

"Considering their intended purpose, I find that rather appropriate," Kaworu shrugged in his own simulator plug, the signal transmitting to the Eva's above them.

"SEELE has turned our weapons against us," Rei reflected, flexing her hands in her plug suit's gloves, seeing the white arms of the Mass Produced Eva's flexing in turn. "It is only fair that we respond in kind."

"How are we supposed to tell each other apart?" Toji asked to no one as he looked from left to right. The screens all around his display showed a line of identical white harpies bearing equally identical grins.

"Just activate your IFF command," Kensuke's face appeared on Toji's screen. "A little name tag will pop up over each unit in your head's-up-display."

Toji thought back to his training and flipped what he thought was the switch Kensuke meant, and in an instant, an appropriately colored label of each pilot's name hovered over each of the white Eva's, underlined by a marker leading to each unit.

"Each of these units is armed with an S2 Engine, same as the rest of the Eva's," Mayumi observed, checking her power systems.

"They also each have the same mock-up lance of Longinus that the other Eva's have," Hikari noticed.

"It's too bad we couldn't get some training in with these units," Mana lamented. "They probably handle different from our own."

"We've been training for this all our life," Shinji said, as though reciting a mantra. '_Our Eva's have _identical_ capabilities_. _If we fail, the failure is _our_ drive to succeed. We have to want it. Disenable ourselves the ability to live without it. It has to define us!_'"

No one said a word. But Shinji could see the other pilots were nodding, smiling, Kaworu and Rei most of all. Shinji managed to smile back at them. It didn't matter the shape of the machine he rode in. Here were his friends. His family. His life. He had never felt more belonging than where he sat now.

"'_The Eva is not the weapon – _we_ are_'" Shinji went on_._ "'_The Eva is merely a tool. _We_ are its only limit_.'"

He grabbed his controls as he felt the simulated lurch as his pristine white war machine fell from the belly of the black carriers they rode on.

"'_Put enough heart into it…and we will cut through ANYTHING_!'"

As one, the Children of Eva let out a sonorous battle cry as they did ride the wind to meet their fate.


	3. Chapter 3

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**The Difference of a Life**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

"Then hand in hand,

On the edge of the sand,

They dance by the light of the moon…"

- Edward Lear, "The Owl and the Pussycat."

* * *

The fight between Angel and Evangelion was no more. What had begun as a battle between two sides had become – really, always had been – infinitely more complicated. Having gained control of the power of God, mankind had created Eva. Adam and Lilith, which were and always had been the watchful stewards of humankind while they grew and developed, had decided that the time had arisen for humanity to be tested.

Seventeen Angels they had been sent thenceforth to test humanity, and so Eva and Angel did battle. And for a time, that had been the way of it. What had transpired afterward had been the deeds and presumption of man. The meaning of Angel had been twisted. And so too, inevitably, was Eva. Now, Eva was the enemy. The Angels were the ally. And the tools of the very people that sought to undo everything were now the last vestige standing between the Children of Eva and the end of the world.

The ruins of the dummy controlled Evangelion Units lay in torn, bloody pieces in the sea of broken concrete, twisted metal, and the mess of bodily fluids that had oozed from the lifeless corpses of the giant biomechanical beasts whose bones now littered the charred remains of Tokyo-3. No amount of restoration would again return Tokyo-3 to its former glory. Even the Geo-Front, final bastion of humanity's continued existence, would have to be excavated should its occupants seek to escape.

The Children of Eva had witnessed the battle that had taken place on this defiled ground; watched as their beloved war machines battled the very enemy they been at war with all their lives, and fought to their last breath to destroy their own pilots. The site of so much destruction and gore was not what surprised them. What surprised them was the death, the lack of anything crawling back to life to resume the onslaught. Each of the Evangelion Units came equipped with a Super Solenoid device, a perpetual energy engine whose very existence defied the very essence of the laws of physics. These devices granted the Eva's infinite energy, and with a high enough sync ratio, the ability to regenerate.

Seven of the Eva's had survived the Angel battle, and should have been there when the pilots arrived. But the only being that awaited their arrival at the heart of the broken Tokyo-3 was the bestial Unit-01.

"Why aren't the rest of the Eva's moving?" Mana asked, giving voice to everyone's concern.

Each pilot was still deep within the confines of the Geo-Front, as safe as anyone could be with the events that were currently transpiring. Through the brilliance of Asuka's mother, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, the nine white Mass Production Units that SEELE had left in Ryota Soryu's care were now each equipped with a long distance Special Remote Entry Plug that allowed the pilots to synchronize with Evangelion from anywhere on the planet. It was an invention that largely removed the safety of the pilot from the concern of the battle. However, with the levels at which each of the pilots was currently synchronized, the damage done by pain and psychological trauma was as real as it had ever been.

And their limits would soon be put to the test, for the answer to Mana's question became apparently before she had even finished asking it.

Unit 01, as if sensing their presence, reared its head into the sky, and let out an enraged bellow of hatred. Its armor was in tatters, not from any beating it had taken, but from the massive and explosive expansion of its own body as it acquired core after core after core from its fallen brethren. While the remote controlled Mass Production Units had been en route, Unit 01, most monstrous of the Eva's, had helped itself to the cores of its broken and defeated brothers and sisters, devouring them one by one and taking them into its own body.

The added energy had caused Unit 01's body had expanded outward, its flesh breaking through the purple and green armor plating. No longer the lithe being of agility and dexterity, Unit 01 was now a hulking, muscle-bound monster whose footsteps shattered the Earth, the S2 engines within its body increasing its core density to horrific proportions. It now moved with all the reckless abandon of a being that saw all existence as either something to be destroyed or as an obstacle in the destruction of something else.

Its helmet had burst open, revealing its disfigured head and gnashing teeth bared even when its mouth was closed. Its transformation seemed to have gained it additional eyes – seven in all – arranged in a vertical pattern across its face and brow. And from its back, the glowing, spindly, spider-like wings that had borne it from its berth were now at least twice as long as before, and each ended in a horrific claw, poised to grasp anything that dared come near. Within seven of these arms lay a glowing orb, embedded in the translucent "flesh" of its claw, buried deep and connected to the Eva's body with pulsing veins of light.

"Unit 01 has…_eaten_ the other Eva's!"

Shinji quaked in rage and disgust at the unholy beast his bio-mech had become. While he had never particularly enjoyed piloting Eva, nor had he bore the machine anything resembling love, he could not deny that it had kept him safe in battle, that it had served him as no other tool had, and that he owed both his own life and the life of everyone he cared for, to the soul residing within.

Rei had once confided in him that within each Eva did indeed reside a soul. And not just any soul, but the soul of a human mother. The thought had terrified him at first, but whenever he rode his Eva into battle, he could not deny that he felt…protected; safe within the cockpit. But while he knew and accepted that a mother's wrath was nothing to be trifled with, this horrendous display could not be the will of any mother.

The Mass Produced Eva's had just come into view, less than a mile from Tokyo-3 as they descended upon their ruined city, when Kaworu let out a shout.

"AT Field! Brace for impact!"

The other pilots didn't even have time to question as each of their Eva's quite suddenly were halted in mid-air, appearing to slam into separate Eva-sized hexagonal force fields. In the back of his mind, Shinji's brain tried to process what was happening. An AT Field this far out? They were still miles away from Unit 01. How could its AT Field stretch out this far?

Then Asuka, who took Kaworu's warning as a challenge to be overcome, twisted in midair to bring her Longinus Lance to bear.

"HRYAAAGH!" she let out a ferocious war-cry as she brought her replica Lance down point first and drove its double-helix prongs into the center of the AT Field that stood between her and her target. With a stretch like rubber, the AT Field began to give way, until it finally tore and split down the middle, and in each of the Children's monitors, the white Eva with the red IFF marker broke through the outer layer of the blockade.

"Come on!" Asuka shouted in encouragement. "We've got lances now! _Use_ them!"

As each of the pilots followed Asuka's example, Kaworu opened a channel between each other pilots.

"Unit 01 has absorbed the core of Zeruel, as well as the cores of each of the other six remaining Eva's, giving it seven cores in addition to its own. It's possible that the addition of this first core is what awakened this…appetite…and altered its goal into the acquisition of further cores. Or it could be that this was its goal to begin with. It will still go after Adam and Lilith, but at the moment, these nine white Eva's make easier targets."

Rei's face appeared in a screen next to Kaworu's in each of the other's pilot's view screens.

"The addition of these cores has evidently increased the strength, range and number of Unit 01's AT Field. Our lances will be invaluable tools, but it is likely that we will require the use of all nine Lances in order to penetrate the seven additional AT Fields that Unit 01 has acquired. Also, needless to say, we should take care not to allow these Eva's we pilot to be captured, as Unit 01 will mostly likely attempt to acquire their cores, which will only strengthen it further."

"And there is an even bigger danger," Mayumi warned. "It has already acquired seven additional cores – see the glowing orbs within its wings? There are seven of them…and there are twelve wings in all. Eva was created to be able to bring about Third Impact under SEELE's terms, and this is the eventuality of that inevitability. If Unit 01 gains five more cores…I theorize that Eva will cause its own version of Third Impact. A man-made Impact. A sin against reality. There's no telling what that will entail, but all life on Earth will almost certainly be sundered."

As the others absorbed all of these, many of them grimaced and groaned.

"So, unless we all attack as one, we won't be effective at all," Kensuke broke down the others' observations for his own digestion. "And should any of us fall in combat, it becomes too strong for our combined number to evenly match. And if it gets five of us…game over."

Toji winced. "Aw, man! We finally get our hands on some of these Lances, and Unit 01 becomes some kind of freaky Super-Eva. Just when I thought we'd finally have the upper hand!"

"At least it's after us now and not the Geo-Front," Mana observed, zooming in on the monstrous face of Unit 01 as it peered towards the heavens at its prey. "Maybe we can lure it away?"

"We wouldn't be able to lure it far," Kaworu reasoned. "Look how far it's already sunken into the ground. It seems to have lost its ability to fly. Its wings have become weapons, and the addition of the other cores has made it denser than any natural element on Earth. If it acquires any more of our cores, it'll start reaching planetary weight levels. It's very existence will slowly destroy the Earth over time by sheer force of gravity alone."

There was a somber silence as the situation began to fully sink in.

"There has to be a way!" Hikari declared. "This thing can't be unbeatable. The Angels wouldn't have put us in this situation if it was unwinnable."

Asuka raised an eyebrow at that. "That's putting an awful lot faith in the Angels, Hikari."

Shinji spoke up. "No, she's right. Think about it – if the Angels had wanted us dead, they could have killed us all from the get-go. Kaworu could have done it by himself without us being any wiser. But he didn't. The Angels don't want to kill us. They want to test us."

"So?" Asuka asked. "Do you have a plan, Shinji?"

Shinji shook his head. "We don't know enough about the enemy's capabilities yet. All we know is that its AT Field reaches over a mile. Rei? Kensuke? You're our best strategists. Any suggestions?"

"Those outer AT Fields were probably simple deterrents," Kensuke pointed out. "The farther out they project, the weaker they are. Now that they've fallen, it's likely that Unit 01 is now recalculating its range to increase the strength of its AT Field to the point where it can't be penetrated by a single Lance. When that happens, we'll each have to strike at a single point in order to break through."

"Those arms on its back appear to be made of the same energy as an AT Field," Rei surmised. "They feel…unsettling. As if they exist in order to reach inside the very soul to pluck it from our bodies. And it has more arms than we have Eva's. I cannot advise that we get too near to them, but we may not have a choice."

Shinji mulled this over. "Any way you suggest approaching this thing to allow us to recon without putting out Units at risk?"

"The simplest method would involve using our Lances as projectile weapons and attack from afar," Kensuke mused. "But we would each only get one shot, and an attack like that requires careful timing and coordination. Not to mention, we would be throwing away our weapons."

Rei scanned the blood stained Earth beneath them, most of it bathed in a sea of LCL. Limbs were protruding from the liquid in addition to concrete, parts of buildings, as well as…

A smile appeared on her face.

"I have an idea…"

xxxxx

Kyoko and Ryota were not in the habit of just doing nothing when there was a catastrophe on the horizon. Thanks to the attack on the First Branch of NERV by the Angel Iruel, primary control had be wrested from the hands of SEELE back to their own. Best of all, the loss of staff and personnel who had either fled or been killed could be almost completely made up for by the Angel, who seemed to be obeying Kyoko's direct vocal commands. Ryota didn't trust the Angel quite yet, but so far, it had only proved helpful.

At least, as helpful as it could be. With the Eva's beyond their control, and the remaining NERV facilities subdued, the UN beaten back, and the JSSDF in full retreat, there was very little left of them to do. In an effort to keep the peace, encouraging words had been broadcast on all channels to the general public, but aside from that, the two of them were powerless to affect the outcome of the battle.

That was when a call came in on an encrypted channel.

"Professor Soryu," a girl's voice sounded, interrupting Kyoko from viewing the spectacle graciously provided from the Third Branch. Even as (in her most humble opinion) the world's foremost authority on bio-mechanical engineering, the spectacle before her was baffling. An Eva taking in a secondary core within itself? It was conceivable, but…the implications were astronomical! And for it to happen seven times?

"Pilot Yamagishi?" the professor blinked in surprise when she saw the girl's face on the transmission panel.

"Ma'am," Mayumi said sternly, snapping a smart salute. "We haven't had the opportunity to speak at any great length, but under the circumstances, I believe it would be prudent to skip the pleasantries and come right to the point - there is a question I must ask of you."

Kyoko was surprised by the girl's formality. She held no military rank, and derived her authority from within NERV, but had never been addressed by a pilot in such a manner.

"Very well, pilot," Kyoko replied, deciding that she liked this girl. "Ask."

Mayumi's expression did not waver. "These Eva's that we are controlling…they are production models, correct? Outfitted with all the standard equipment and specifications?"

Kyoko blinked. What was this girl getting at?

"Indeed…though many systems are upgraded, you'll find all the functions at your disposal meets or exceeds the same standards as your previous models."

Mayumi took a deep breath. Something about Kyoko's revelation seemed to…displease her? But why?

"Very good, Professor, that was all I needed to know…"

Mayumi was speaking with a kind of resignation that Kyoko had only ever heard from her husband when he was about to do something insane. Suddenly, Kyoko knew exactly what the girl intended.

"Yamagishi…Mayumi…if you do this, you'll lose your Eva. You'll lose your ability to pilot, perhaps forever. That system has never been tested on human pilots before."

"I understand, Professor," Mayumi smiled. "That's a price I'm willing to pay if it means victory in battle today. Pilot Yamagishi out."

The professor straightened her stance. She never thought she'd see the day when a teenage girl, no older than her daughter, could put on such a brave face.

"Godspeed, pilot…"

xxxxx

The next layer of the barrier erected around Unit 01 revealed itself around a thousand meters from the epicenter of Tokyo-3 where the twisted Evangelion stood and waited for its prey to come closer. It made no movement to attack, and revealed no intention of perusing either the Eva's flying overhead, or of burrowing further through the crust around the Geo-Front. According to Mayumi, the Eva's own weight would accomplishment that much in time.

Its eyes were locked upon the flying harpies, evil intent hidden behind those seven blazing retinas. Whatever it had planned for the approaching units, it certainly wasn't making it easy for them to close the distance. Perhaps it was attempting to neutralize their own AT Fields despite the fact that it could have easily accomplished this if the Eva's didn't have Longinus replicas.

The Eva's dove in unison, their wings folded back to streamline them all into a single point of attack, their lances brought to bear, impacting with the field, bringing it into the visible spectrum. The combined power of the nine Lances sent a ripple of unnatural color resonating through the multi-layered AT Field, its seams crinkling and sparkling around the entirety of the field, which covered Unit 01 like a dome of energy. The number of facets of the AT Field was impossible to count. No longer was the field a mere hexagon, but a cut gemstone of brilliant terror. The shape of the facets began to warp and distort as the nine Eva's began to cause a depression in the field as they drove down.

"Keep it up!" Shinji cried, as the lot of them strained under the pressure. Their LCL bubbled as each pilot concentrated to their utmost to keep their attacked focused on a single point. Nine Lances converged together as the white Mass Produced Eva's flapped upward to force their bodies downward against the seemingly unbreakable seam of the poly-faceted, multi-layered dome of Absolute Terror, but as the pressure began to build, the dome began to lose its shape. Like a balloon being prodded by a finger, the dome began to curve along the point of impact, until the force of the distortion brought the Lances even closer together.

Each of the replica lances began to twist and merge their prongs together to form into a triangular shape that allowed the nine different yet identical points merge briefly as one weapon and burrow its way through the AT Field, layer by layer. The nine triangular points were joined together now in a pyramidal dagger that began to twist together, warping even further to form a shimmering drill bit. Tighter and tighter the point became, spinning around to burrow deeper and deeper into the final adversary's AT Field, each rotation bringing the bearers that much closer to the enemy the field protected.

"It's working!" Asuka let out a whoop of excitement.

"We're doing it!" Toji shouted in triumph.

None of the other pilots were able to add anything else, as a violent rumbling shook the very Earth around them. The air itself seemed to shake, their flight paths turbulent as the Eva's struggled to stay airborne. As the AT Field collapsed, the pilots were able to catch a glimpse of the Eva underneath.

And in that moment, they knew true terror.

With its protective field all but broken, Unit 01 had let out a single roar. With nothing more than the power of its voice, the Eva had shaken the very bedrock beneath it. The liquid gore surrounding it was rippling outward with such intensity that waves were washing over the crest of the valley walls surrounding what had once been the city, and painting the landscape in crimson.

The sound of its roar had become a shockwave that had nearly sent the Eva's flying backward, and had shaken the entire Geo-Front. The rumblings had jostled the simulation chamber pods, rattling them in their berths. The pilots were not only feeling the shockwaves through their Eva's, but from the Earth around them. Even after Unit 01's roar had ended, the echoes and reverberations still made it too loud for the pilots to hear themselves think.

"This thing…it's stronger than everything we've ever faced before combined!" Kensuke shouted to overcome the din.

"This doesn't change a thing!" Mana cried out encouragingly. "We stick to the plan!"

"This is insane!" Hikari cried, holding her hands over her ears to block out the sound of the Eva's anger. "How can the Angels expect us to fight something like this?"

"What are you all so scared about?" Toji laughed, though it was a nervous laugh. "That thing's just whining cause we broke its shield. It's gonna have a lot more to complain about once we get to it!"

"Be strong…" Mayumi urged. "If this is the most the Eva can throw at us, then we are better off than originally thought."

The white Mass Produced Eva's landed jerkily on the ground some distance away from Unit 01. The ground wasn't so much ground as it was a single, massive marshland of blood, broken Earth, concrete and steel. All around them, the world was a red haze. Still, most of the liquid had been cleared away by the Eva's Earth-shaking roar, so the footing wasn't as treacherous. Still, each Eva stepped lightly as they spread out to surround the massive beast at the epicenter of Tokyo-3, encircling it, keeping about five hundred meters' distance.

"This is it, guys…" Shinji mused. "The last battle. After this…we can all go home."

He didn't say that the homes they'd known were now so much rubble under their feet. New homes could be built. Their families, such as they were, were still alive and waiting. That was all that mattered. And they knew it.

"You know, I'm kind of gonna miss this," Asuka laughed.

"What are you talking about?" Mana smiled. "We'll still be able to pilot for whatever else comes next. Sure, the stakes won't be as high, but it'll still be fun."

"If you're there, I'm there," Kensuke agreed.

"Not me," Toji shook his head. "I'm going back to school, getting a job, and living a normal life from here on out. I think…I think I owe it to my family…and my…uhh…my…"

Hikari sighed. "You can say it, Toji…it's not like it's news to anyone…"

Rei smiled. "I believe what Toji meant is that his family is more than just his blood relations now, Hikari."

Both of them blushed.

"Get used to surprises from Miss Ayanami," Kaworu chuckled. "I certainly have."

Mayumi was oddly silent as the pilots chattered away nervously, all the while getting into position around the beast in their midst. She gritted her teeth. She hoped…prayed that it would not come down to what she was planning. But some prices were worth paying.

"Alright guys…everyone in position?" Kensuke asked, shakily as he took his spot. They were all encircling the purple and red unit 01, each an equal distance from each other, keeping it surrounded on all sides.

"Roger!" Mana sounded off.

"Ready," Toji confirmed.

"You bet!" Asuka crowed.

"I'm ready," Hikari added.

"In position," Mayumi declared.

"All set," Shinji put in.

"We're ready to move on your mark," Rei informed.

"It's been an honor everyone," Kaworu announced. "Win or lose, live or die, we fight together. I couldn't ask for a kinder fate."

That earned some somber smiles from the group. They were an imperfect bunch, with drama and troubles and disagreements aplenty. They hadn't always gotten along, and in some cases, gotten into all out fights with each other. But they respected each other. They looked out for each other. In end, what mattered most in this war wasn't some obscure ideal. It wasn't for the sake of humanity or even their families back home that they were fighting for.

It was for each other.

It was for the pilots standing there next to them that mattered in the end.

"On my mark…" Kensuke ground his teeth. "Ready…go!"

xxxxx

Misato watched, a mixture of terror, trepidation and pride on her face as she watched the children plunge ahead. She was unable to send any weapons or any kind of equipment, as the means to do so had been destroyed and buried under so much rubble, and most of the weaponry she could have sent up wouldn't have been much use, now that they were armed with replica Lances of Longinus. At first, she had attempted to offer tactical support, but by the time she pressed the com switch down, Kensuke and Rei had either come to the same conclusion, or in some cases, an found an even better solution.

So once again, she was left to wait.

And hope.

"Once again, all our hopes and dreams are pinned on those kids," Kaji observed from behind her.

Misato turned to look at him. The last she'd checked, he was leaning against the wall over by the door. She hated the way he could sneak up on her like that. She had gone through enough combat training to single handed take down a small battalion, and yet Kaji always seemed to manage to circumvent her personal radar.

"These 'kids' have done more for this world than the world will ever know," Misato pursed her lips, eyes not leaving the scene of the battle before her.

Rei's brilliant plan, it seemed, involved scavenging the fallen Lances from the battlefield dropped by the other Eva's. It took some scouring to find everyone, but they exuded a very unique signature that allowed NERV's sensors to zero in on their location. After some careful strafing and distancing, each of the Eva pilots had managed to get their hands on a second Lance of Longinus replica, essentially doubling their cutting power.

Now, duel wielding Lances, each white Eva charged forward

"Even now – outmatched, outgunned, facing impossible odds, and with the fate of the entire world riding on their shoulders – they still manage to make me look like a world class chump when it comes to strategizing. I can hardly do anything to help them."

Kaji gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "If I recall correctly, you just orchestrated a ground battle that more or less completely neutralized the UN army while only losing a quarter of all soldiers accounted for. You're just as much a fighter as these kids are. But to these pilots, fighting Angels is all there is."

Misato shook her head. "That's not it. They're young men and women, just like the rest of us. They laugh and cry just like anyone else. They live…love…and get hurt just as easily as the rest of us…"

Kaji's hand was still on her shoulder, and Misato reached up to cover it with her own.

"The reason they have to do this is because of us!" Misato growled. "We took a bunch of regular kids and turned them into killing machines…"

Kaji squeezed her shoulder. "I don't think they're killing machines, Katsuragi – at least, not completely. Like you said…they still laugh. They still love. They still cry. They can still feel just as much as any human can."

He closed his eyes.

"And things could have turned out very differently. Each of these kids could have just as easily become self-absorbed, reclusive, or just plain insane. But they've managed to hold onto their humanity."

"That isn't because of me, Kaji…" Misato said, forlornly. "It's because they each have each other…"

She found herself leaning back into Kaji's arms, her eyes still focused on the screen in front of her. But the screen was getting blurry for some reason. And there was this inconvenient burning in her eyes.

Then she realized she was just crying.

"The question is what happens next?" Kaji asked, giving her a reassuring embrace. "What kind of future do these kids have after this is over?"

"Over?" Misato finally turned her head to give him a good hard stare. Her eyes were full of tears, but her voice was unbroken and unwavering. "Do you honestly think any of us are going to survive this?"

Kaji narrowed his eyebrows. "Katsuragi…after everything that's happened, who can honestly say _what's_ going to happen when all this is done?"

Misato closed her eyes. She felt tired. Tired of fighting, tired of Angels, tired of being helpless while her pilots risked life and limb every time they went out there. She just wanted it all to end, whether that involved winning or losing. As long as she could be granted a respite.

But they were so close…

So close to finishing what had started fifteen years ago. She knew that no matter what happened in this battle, nothing would be fixed. Everything that had been broken would remain broken.

But at least nothing else would be on the verge of breaking afterward.

"If we survive this…"

"_When_ we survive this," Kaji corrected.

"If…when…whatever happens, as long as I draw breath…" Misato clenched her fingers around his hand once again, but this time, it was a sign of determination and not of need. "I plan to make sure that these kids _have_ a future to look forward to. I'll make sure that this world they just saved is _worth_ living in, and that the world recognizes the sacrifices they've made. I will _not_ let them get swept under the rug or lost to the annals of history. They will be _honored_."

Her resolve seemed to weaken as she remembered just how unlikely that scenario even was.

"Or failing that," she squeezed her eyes shut again, as if trying not to imagine the likelihood facing her. "…At the very least, _remembered_."

"Good answer…" Kaji said, letting his arms slip around her waist.

They stood still for a few moments, watching the battle on the view screen. It was difficult to say who was winning. At the moment, it was simply an exchange that allowed the children to learn more about their opponent. Nothing had been lost yet, and nothing yet had been gained.

"I think…" Kaji muttered, trailing off as if distracted.

At his pause, Misato opened her eyes to look at him. It was not like Kaji to be at a loss for words.

"I think…" he started again, still focused on the screen. "I'd like to help you with that…"

Misato blinked as she broke away from him to turn around and fix him with a curious stare. She studied his face for a long time, and for some reason, he wouldn't meet her gaze. His eyes were on the screen, and he was watching the same scene that she had been watching.

He looked…ashamed? Determined? Resolved? What was that emotion on his face that made it seem like the world suddenly looked different to him?

"So what you're saying is…" Misato managed a pretty convincing smile. "…You want to stick around?"

Kaji's expression was weak and unsure. It was the first time she'd ever seen him so…uncertain, unconfident, like he was on a runaway freight train and had no idea where it was taking him.

"Yeah…" he managed, looking like he was about to break into a nervous sweat. "I guess that is what I'm saying…"

Misato turned to stand next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Good answer…"

xxxxx

Ritsuko watched the battle with growing trepidation. Without her mother's guidance, her ingenuity had been stretched the breaking point. As much as she was an expert in the sciences, in mathematics, in engineering and theoretical mechanics, she doubted anyone appreciated how much creativity and right brained thinking it required to wrap her mind around the Eva's, the Angels, the Evangel Project, and even the MAGI.

It had taken all of her skill to keep NERV floating while her mother had been absent (she still wasn't quite satisfied with the explanation her mother had offered upon her return) and that had been with the help of Kyoko Soryu, loathe as she was to admit it.

Now that her mother was back, however, she felt so entirely dwarfed by her capabilities, by her lateral thinking, her ingenuity, her utter genius. She had utterly decimated seven MAGI computer systems with just her own (although, granted, she did have some help from an Angel) and that was _after_ she had become one of the first human beings to commune with Angels. Next to such a giant, how did she even compare? And it wasn't just her mother – Professor Soryu had devised a totally new type of entry plug that completely revolutionized the way Eva's worked in the field, and had done so entirely in secret from SEELE, not to mention the rest of NERV. And of course, compared to Commander Ikari…

"Ritsuko?"

The thirty-year-old faux blonde looked up from her screen to see none other than Yui herself standing next to her, a concerned look in her eyes.

All of the sudden, Ritsuko was an intern again, trying to earn praise from her professor.

"Y-Yes, Commander?"

Yui shook her head, though not, it seemed, in disapproval.

"I know this is neither the time nor the place…" she admitted, turning her eyes to the battle.

It was not going well. Unit 01's wings, which each ended in a massive, glowing claw made of Absolute Terror, had struck one of the Eva's – it was difficult to tell which – and had disrupted the synchronization with its pilots, causing the Eva's to fall completely limp while the pilots fumbled for control.

Unit 01 had pounced upon the first unit to fall, and had absorbed its core, causing another of its wings to glow a bright white at the center of its claw-like appendage. Each unit to fall to this de-synchronization attack afterward was quickly dragged out of harm's way while the pilot re-established their remote synchronization, which took several minutes, and cost the other's valuable time. But it was either that or let Unit 01 get that much closer to causing its own sick, twisted version of Third Impact.

"We don't have much time left, and it will only be more difficult to speak as things develop…" Yui went on, biting her lip as she observed the flow of the battle. "It is time that we were fully honest with each other…and ourselves…"

Ritsuko's face flushed as her eyes widened. "Commander? I…if I've offended you or…"

Yui held up a hand to silence her. Her smile was a sad. "I _know_, Ritsuko. You don't have to hide it anymore. You're not exactly subtle, you know?"

Ritsuko bit down on her lip as she stared long and hard at the keyboard in front of her. This was a nightmare. This couldn't be happening. She was only glad her mother was too transfixed on the MAGI to see this.

"I don't…I don't want to appear condescending, Ritsuko…" Yui said, cautiously. "But I've always seen great potential in you. As a scientist, and as a woman…"

Ritsuko squeezed her eyes shut. Why here? Why now?

"Love isn't about logic," Yui sighed. "It isn't about what makes you happy, or what makes you feel good, and it certainly isn't about convenience. It's not about seeing good in someone, or being attracted to someone. It isn't about age or gender. It's about one thing, and one thing only…"

Ritsuko flinched as Yui's hand touched her shoulder.

"It's about identity."

That's when Ritsuko blinked her eyes open to look at her. Her curiosity had been piqued, and her mind wasn't working fast enough to figure it out.

"W…what?"

Yui placed a hand over her own heart. "I could simply tell you that I'm married, that I'm in love with my husband, that I'm an old woman, or that I've haven't experimented with other girls since high school…"

Ritsuko felt her cheeks flush deep red.

"…But do you want to know how much any of that matters when it comes to who we love?"

Ritsuko blinked, biting her lip, and shook her head.

Yui smiled. "None whatsoever. We love people because they are who they are. It's not one iota more complex than that."

She took the other woman's hand in her own.

"I've watched you grow into a remarkable woman, Ritsuko. Your mother and I have been colleagues for years. We respect one another and we value each other's opinions, but in all that time, I still cannot count her among my friends. Not truly. There will always be something standing between us. But not you, Ritsuko…"

She squeezed her hand.

"We've been keeping track of you. I know if must feel like we've been spying on you, but it was necessary. I've followed everything you've done in Germany, every decision you've made, every mistake, every all-nighter, every argument, every achievement you've ever made."

Ritsuko could hold it in no longer. "But I haven't achieved anything!"

Yui took her by the shoulders. "That's not true, Ritsuko. Though you may not see it that way, what you did with the Dummy Plugs…"

Ritsuko froze. Color drained form her face.

"Never mind that in doing so, you almost certainly struck an irreparable blow against SEELE…but by destroying Rei's clone bodies, you set her _free_. No longer will she think of herself as someone's tool or a doll. She will think of herself as a person, and live her life as one from this day forward, Ritsuko…and all in no small part thanks to you."

Yui wrapped her arms around Ritsuko's shoulders. Her eyes were wide open, a confused mixture of fear, shock and infatuation on her face.

"That is something that your mother could have never done, Ritsuko…" Yui sounded relieved, thrilled, grateful. "Whatever your mistakes may have been, you are a good person, Ritsuko…and I'm proud to have known you…"

Ritsuko flinched as she slowly managed to return the gesture. The way she said that sounded so…final…

"Do you…really think we're going to die, here?" Ritsuko asked in a weak voice.

Yui shrugged. "If I said yes, would that change anything? If I told you that you only had a few hours left, what would you want to do with them?"

A million terrible things rushed into Ritsuko's mind, and she found herself blushing again.

"I…"

"And before you say anything…" Yui touched a hand to Ritsuko's shoulder, closing her eyes sadly. "I'm obligated to remind you that I have a family, and I will not betray them, no matter how dear you are to me."

Ritsuko looked away. She hadn't been about to ask for that. She hadn't!

"However…" Yui took Ritsuko by the shoulders again and pointed her towards the screen where Misato had been keeping in contact with Central Dogma. "There is someone who admires you, quite possibly as much as you admire me..."

Ritsuko followed Yui's gaze to the image of the Commander Center, the six bridge bunnies still hard at work monitoring and checking and rerouting the multitude of functions necessary to keep the facility going now that Tokyo-3 was more or less a wasteland.

As if she knew she was being watched, Maya Ibuki turned towards the screen, gazing unblinking back at the screen, a curious look on her face.

Yui gave Ritsuko a comforting pat on the back. "None of us have any more time for excuses, Ritsuko. I suggest you use this time wisely."

Ritsuko's eyes were hidden by her hair as Yui walked away. Tears were running down Ritsuko's cheeks, and she was gritting her teeth, brow cinched in a taught, angry knot.

"I'm such a fool…" she muttered to herself, before mashing her thumb into the intercom button. "Maya, I need you down in Terminal Dogma - now."

Without so much as a pause, she saw the Lieutenant nod at the screen and leap to her feet, dashing out of the camera's view.

Ritsuko seemed to deflate. It would take Maya at least twenty minutes to get this far down. Did they even have that long?

Yui found her way back to Gendo's side and gave him a sad smile.

"Dear…why am I such a glutton for punishment?" she asked him sardonically.

Gendo afforded her an arched eyebrow. "I like to think that you're the sort who cannot help but rise to a challenge."

Yui felt his hand come around her waist, and did not fight him as he pressed her against him.

"You never used to be so open with your displays of affection," she observed, though she did not seem all too irritated. She was still a little sore after their reunion the night before. Gendo had certainly missed her while she'd been away.

"A man can live without his wife for only so long," Gendo said, eyes unreadable behind those stern glasses of his.

Yui frowned. He had changed in the six months she'd been gone. Of all the people she had left behind, Gendo had been the only one who'd known of her continued existence. Well, him and that errand boy Kaji, but she would have been hard pressed to conceal anything from him, and to be fair, he and Kaworu had been very helpful in providing intel while she and Naoko had been more or less stranded in Terminal Dogma, living off packaged foodstuffs for months on end.

Still, living without his wife for that long, and knowing what she was doing, what was going on behind the scenes, being pressed into the role of figurehead of NERV, as well as keeping the balance of protecting and teaching his son, and keeping the truth about his mother from him…

Gendo had drawn in on himself, just as prophesied in That Which Should Be.

It was too much. There were too many coincidences lining up. If this scenario played out to its conclusion, it was possible that Third Impact would be entirely unavoidable.

And everything would have to start over again.

xxxxx

Hikari had been the first to go down – or, to be more accurate, her Eva had been the first to go down. It hadn't been out of sentimentality, she told herself. Just because the pilot who she'd knocked out of the way had been Toji didn't mean she had taken the hit because of love. Realistically, while fighting like this, their bodies weren't in any danger. Of course, that didn't mean that they couldn't still feel pain from their connection to the Eva's, though as it ultimately turned out, being hit by one of those arms didn't hurt at all. It just caused a sudden, jarring darkness, a numbness, as if their Eva hadn't been moving at all, just like when they 'died' in the simulator. It terrified her to imagine fighting under these circumstances using their own Eva's. To suddenly have her Eva power off in the middle of combat, helpless to defend herself and run away while the beast that was Unit 01 loomed over her, preparing to devour her…

Hikari shuddered. That was not a feeling she cared to linger on. As it was with these remote entry plugs, however, having her connection severed caused little more than frustration as she suddenly became unable to contribute further to the battle, and, in her case, an ashamed sense of loss at having her remote controlled Eva devoured whole, as all the fighting power that her Eva represented removed from the battle, her core contributing to the growing number of glowing orbs within Unit 01's claw-like wings, bringing it one step closer to its goal.

Only four more cores, and everything would end.

Hikari stood dripping outside the simulation chambers, watching the display screens of each of the other either pilots. Toji, despite the fact that Hikari was alive and well outside his own pod, was fighting with renewed anger and vigor at her defeat. It was still rather touching.

Hikari sighed. It was not out of love that she had sacrificed herself to save Toji. No amount of sacrificing would save any of her friends if they didn't win this fight. Toji was simply the better fighter. They could maybe afford to lose her, but Toji had always been more aggressive, more competitive, more protective, and simply stronger than she was. If it was a choice between losing her, and losing Toji, the choice was an obvious one to her.

Hikari sat down in one of the plastic chairs outside the simulation pods, her green plug suit clinging to her body, a towel forgotten around her shoulders as she watched the screens of her fellow pilots. In truth, she hated piloting. She had never wanted to pilot, and was really only fighting because of Toji. Once this was over, she wanted nothing more than to finish up high school, get a college degree, and settle down somewhere.

And, mercifully, Toji seemed to want the same. In spite of his brash, hard-hitting attitude and nature, Toji was a compassionate soul under his hard exterior. It was this that had drawn her to him to begin with. It was something that she doubted her friend Asuka would ever see or understand. Toji was her motivation, her reason for being here at all. She sometimes found herself wondering if she could go back and do it all over again, if she still would have followed him down this path.

But then she watched him fighting out there, watched him try his hardest to keep the world spinning just a little longer. For his family. For his sister and herself, she acknowledged with a blush. She was already a part of his family, in his eyes. To Toji, no one else mattered.

And she knew that she had made the right choice.

Of course, if they lost this battle, none of that would matter.

Her eyes remained transfixed on the screen, following the battle from the sidelines with all the trepidation of a player on the bench, watching her teammates struggle without her. She had never been much of a fighter, always holding back the other fighters. She may have had a good sync ratio, but she just didn't have a fighter's mindset. She couldn't think of the Angels as enemies. Or SEELE, for that matter. She feared them plenty, but she didn't have the killing instinct necessary to hate them, even if they destroyed everyone she knew.

So all she could do was watch. And hope.

xxxxx

Now that the Eva's were each armed with twin Lances of Longinus, even with the loss of Hikari's mech, they still had enough penetrating power to breach the multi-layered AT field surrounding Unit 01. The trick, it seemed, was getting close enough to strike it without being hit by its claws.

Toji had learned that lesson the hard way.

Kensuke would have preferred that Toji had not risked his own damn neck to learn this though. Now Unit 01 had eight glowing cores within its wings, and needed only four more before it had enough to cause an Impact. In addition to another claw-wing on its back that it could use to completely shut down their Eva's with just a touch, it also seemed to gain an additional layer to its AT Field, so now they needed all eight pilots just to breach its shields.

"Come on, guys, we can do this!" Kensuke grunted encouragingly.

Unit 01 had not taken a step from where it had stood when they first saw it. It hadn't needed to. Anything that got within ten steps of Unit 01 was immediately assaulted by its desynchronizing arms. And if there was no one within range of the arms on its wings, the arms on its body would extend to impossible lengths and reach out to grab at them, grappling and dragging them within range of its claw wings.

Mana had been the first grabbed by one of these claws, the twisted flesh of its purple and pink arm twisted and elongated, its claw nearly crushing her leg. Out of desperation, she had slashed with the prongs of her Lance, and actually managed to sever Unit 01's arm. It instantly grew back, but not after recoiling it back to normal length, giving Mana a chance to limp away, her own leg slowly healing.

Once they all seemed to get out of range of its two solid arms, the Eva let out another ear-splitting scream, and the shockwave sent them all flying.

"There's got to be a way through this thing's defenses!" Shinji cried.

"It has more arms than we have Eva's!" Toji exclaimed, sounding aggravated. "Even if we all attack at once, it has enough to hit all of us!"

Kensuke's mind went to work. There was a way around this. There _had_ to be.

"What if we –"

BOOSH!

Kensuke didn't get to finish the thought when one of the claw wings burst from the ground and grabbed Kensuke's white Mass Produced Eva around the waist. Unit 01's wings were buried in the Earth beneath its feet, still over a hundred meters away. The additional core must have added to its range! With a pulse of yellow energy, the white Eva suddenly fell limp.

"Ken!" Mana gasped, running to his aid. With a jab of her Lance, Mana stabbed the glowing wing-claw that held him, and it released its grip and retracting into the Earth.

"Quick, grab him!" Toji shouted, slipping the Eva's arm over the shoulder of his own. Mana joined him and rushed to move Kensuke's Eva, slowly limping away, before…

BOOSH! BOOSH! BOOSH!

Three more wing-claws erupted from the Earth, seizing all three of them where they stood, causing Toji and Mana's Eva's to fall to their knees, dropping Kensuke's mech between them.

"Toji!" Shinji shouted, leaping towards them. "Mana! Kensuke!"

_Damn it_, Shinji mentally cursed. They were spread out too far to defend each other! He reached out to one of the limp white frames that had once been his friend's mech, but he was too slow. Toji and Mana's Eva's disappeared as the arms grasped the three of them around the waist and dragged them all back into the Earth.

xxxxx

"Damn it!" Kensuke slammed his fist into the wall outside the simulation pods. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

Behind him, Toji, Mana and Hikari stood or sat, arms crossed, hair dripping with LCL, heads hung in forlorn frowns.

"Isn't this just so typical?" Kensuke shouted at the wall. "The stupid nerd can't protect himself, so he brings his friends down with him as they try to save his ass! So fucking typical!"

Toji was sitting next to Hikari, arm around her shoulder, squeezing her against him. Part of him was relieved to be out of the fight. Another part of him was feeling just as guilty as Kensuke. All he and Hikari could do now was watch…and wait.

Mana was on her feet, watching Kensuke vent at the wall. Watching him practically break his knuckles against the unyielding steel surface without so much as a care for the pain it must have caused him. She could see guilt and rage plain on his face, but if he kept this up, he'd break his fingers.

Finally, she decided, enough was enough.

"Ken," she reached out to touch his shoulder.

When he shrugged her off, she grabbed him by both shoulders and slammed his back against the wall.

"Kensuke!"

The force of her assault threw his glasses off his face. With a clatter and a crunch, the frames fell to the floor, one of the lenses fracturing as it hit the steel deck. Kensuke was seething. His face was burning red with shame and anger, eyes watering in barely contained frustration. He couldn't bring himself to look Mana in the eyes.

On the five remaining screens, they could see the others had taken to the air, flying beyond the range of Unit 01's far-reaching arms. Even that, however, was not beyond its range, as its eyes let loose twin beams of energy into the air, nearly lancing them out of the sky as they swooped and dodged the attacks. As if that wasn't enough, while it wasn't obvious, the crater that was the remains of Tokyo-3, was getting much, much deeper. Unit 01's weight and constant stream of Earth shaking roars had slowly been caving in the ground beneath its feet. Slowly but surely, it was crushing the ceiling of the Geo-Front, causing the entire ground to sink.

"Ken, listen to me!" Mana's voice was shaking with scarcely contained anger, though mostly with herself than with Kensuke. "We were all at risk in that position. It could have happened to any of us. It just so happened to get you first."

Kensuke still wouldn't look at her. His lips were pursed together as his face was still red.

"It would have been nice if we could have reconned Unit 01's abilities without losing three of our Eva's," Mana admitted with a sigh. "But the reality is that we're out now. But at least the top pilots are still in the game, and now they know more about the enemy. Thanks to us. Thanks to _you_."

Kensuke wasn't in a listening mood. But part of him was grateful for Mana trying to convince him that he wasn't a complete drain on his fellow pilots, even if he didn't believe it. He wondered sometimes if he would have ever even made it this far without her, and hoped that he at least wasn't holding her back.

Kensuke wrinkled his nose and gave Mana a dirty look. "You're really not good at this pep talk thing, you know that?"

Mana let out a weak laugh that sounded more like a sigh. "It's not exactly what I was trained for…"

Kensuke relaxed a little. "You can let me go, now…I've finished beating up the wall…"

"Looks more like the wall was beating up you," Mana smiled, but she let him go.

Kensuke settled on his feet, and found that he didn't really have the strength to stand, and fell forward against Mana's shoulder.

She didn't mind supporting his weight for him. He was worth it.

"Come on…" Mana carried him over to one of the plastic seats lining the wall. "Let's see how the others are doing…"

xxxxx

Asuka's white Mass Produced Eva lost a few inches from its wingtip as she barely dodged one of the lasers emitting from Unit 01's eyes.

"Fucking hell!" she shouted in anger. "Is there anywhere this thing can't hit?"

The five remaining Eva's were in the air, their wings outstretched as they darted back and forth overhead, dodging left, right, up and down as Unit 01 tried to shoot them out of the sky.

"We're sitting ducks up here!" Shinji complained. Each of them was still holding onto two replica Lances, but the added weight left them rather cumbersome.

"I believe we would also be 'sitting ducks' down there," Rei observed calmly, nearly swooping under an optic laser that was aimed at her Eva.

"And if we try to retreat, Unit 01 will simply sink into the Geo-Front," Mayumi added.

"We've lost four of our Eva's already," Kaworu said coldly. "Unit 01 has eleven cores. We cannot afford to lose a fifth."

"We've got to do something!" Shinji growled. "There _has_ to be a way to win this!"

Below them, Unit 01 glared up at the five remaining targets. It only needed one more of them to complete its objective, and it seemed to know it. Its seven eyes were red and raging, its mouth a gaping, dripping maw, the blood of its victims covering its body.

And it hungered for more.

"There might be a way…" Mayumi's voice was a whisper.

Shinji grunted as Unit 01's optic laser missed his wing by inches.

"What?" Asuka shouted. "What are you talking about, Yamagishi? Are you holding out on us again?"

Mayumi shook her head. "Evangelion was built to defeat the Angels. This task has been completed. Now there is one last task for Eva, and the Children who pilot her."

Without another word, Mayumi took her Eva into a dive. The other pilots could only gasp and shout as the dark blue IFF reticle on their screens descended into the red quagmire that was Tokyo-3. Her wings were tucked in tightly to her Eva's body, her body narrowed and streamlined to minimize drag as she plummeted towards the battlefield below like a raptor diving for its prey.

WHOOM! BOOM!

With a snap, her wings opened and caught the air to slow her descent just before her hands and feet hit the ground, shattering the Earth with the force of her impact, the ground exploding beneath her, throwing up a hail of dust around her Eva.

"Mayumi!" Shinji cried, his Eva descending far too slowly to reach her in time. "What are you doing?"

A tear would have trickled down her cheek had it not blended in with the LCL. "The only thing I can do…"

Her brow furrowed and she gritted her teeth.

"Invert Mode. Code Word: _The Beast_!"

With a shudder, her Eva began to transform. Its fingers and toes burst through their armor, sprouting claws that sank into the Earth. All along its back, green lock clamps began to jettison from her Eva's spinal column, lending her spinal cord a long, twisted, bony appearance. The feathers of its wings began to shed, as its wings became thin and skeletal, a three fingered claw erupting from their jagged arch, which slammed into the ground, clawing at the dirt. The tail portion of her wings extended outwards, becoming long and serpentine.

"What the…?" Shinji mouthed as he watched, horrified by what was happening on his view screen.

Mayumi clutched the twin Lances in her Eva's claws, the red metal of the weapons twisting and encircling her wrists, the long handles merging with her arms, the blades protruding from her hands, and curving like savage claws.

"This…" Mayumi gritted her teeth. Her LCL was red and bubbling as she fought to retain control. "Is the final stage…" Mayumi was panting for breath. "The last resort…of an animal…on the verge of death!"

Her white Mass Produced Eva, now twisted beyond recognition, threw back its head, its helm and blinders shattering. Beneath the twisted white armor were eyes. Seven of them, red and glowing.

It threw back its head, and let out a roar, its tongue lashing out from between rows of sharp teeth, the talons on its arms, legs and wings clawing the Earth as it prepared to lunge.

"Mayumi!" Shinji was just overhead. "Wait!"

With an exertion of the bestial Eva's impossibly strong arms and legs, the transformed Mass Produced Eva disappeared, leaping forward, towards Unit 01, just as Unit 01's wing-claw came bursting out of the Earth, trying to make a grab at her. It grazed Shinji's mech instead as he prepared to land, sending his Eva careening away, landing in a limp, boneless heap as Shinji desynchronized with his Eva.

Unit 01 might've taken advantage of Shinji's helplessness, but at that moment, Mayumi's Eva impacted it with the force of a hammer blow, its massive super condensed frame toppling over with an earthshattering thud. Armed with both her lances and an Eva that had surrendered its humanity, Mayumi had passed through each layer of the multi-lined AT field like it was tin foil, and hit the monster too fast for its to raise its arms in defense.

With a savage roar, Mayumi's Eva began slashing at the other Eva. Unit 01's arms rose to try to dig its way through her abdomen, trying to reach her core, but she snapped its arms with an afterthought. Unit 01's wings, mostly crushed beneath the weight of their owner, attempted to make a grab for her, but could not seem to get past her own AT Field.

"There can be no love…without remorse…" Mayumi was chanting to herself, reciting the mantra that her parents had taught her since she was too young to remember, as if she was trying to keep herself from going insane. "There can be no peace…without suffering…" She lifted a claw to finish the monster off. "There can be no life…without _sacrifice_!"

Unit 01 opened its mouth to let out an inhuman roar that sent Mayumi flying.

xxxxx

"Come on!" Shinji shouted at his cockpit. "Come on! Move!"

His entry plug became flooded with rainbow fluorescent light, as his consciousness blended through all the spectrums that the Eva could experience. His Eva was going through the startup process, just like it normally did every time he piloted, but it seemed to take an age. Like restarting a computer, waiting for it come back online was an agony when there was so much to do, and so little time to do it!

When his Eva finally woke up, he saw that Kaworu, Asuka and Rei had descended to get Shinji's mech away from Unit 01's claw before it could claim its core, but soon realized that Unit 01 was otherwise occupied regardless.

He gaped as he saw just what Mayumi's Mass Produced Eva had become, and more to the point, just what it was doing to Unit 01. Shinji watched in disbelief as beast fought beast in an epic struggle of godly proportions.

"What did she _do_?" Shinji demanded. "Since when do the Eva's have _that_ kind of built-in system?"

"It was never a system that was supposed to be used," Rei said forebodingly.

"Why the hell not?" Asuka demanded. "I mean, look at her! She's kicking that thing's ass all by herself!"

"Indeed," Kaworu allowed. "But she will lose her Eva in the process."

Shinji blinked. "What?"

"_What_?" Asuka demanded.

"Evangelion isn't capable of sustaining Inverted Mode," Rei explained. "It wasn't even technically 'built in,' per se. It is a phenomenon inherent to all Eva's. Professor Akagi and Commander Ikari have tried to remove it for years, but could only slow down its effects…"

"What do you mean?" Asuka demanded.

"You see…" Kaworu went on. "Inverted Mode is actually the Eva's self-destruct mechanism, stretched out over a longer period of time. It is the first step in de-evolutionary process that reduces the Eva to sub-human levels. Like an animal, it gains powers superior to that of a human, but it will slowly take away its connection to humanity."

"And it affects the pilot too," Rei continued. "The neural pathways in the pilot's brain will degrade and break down, making that pilot unable to connect to Eva ever again. If the human tries to remain in this mode for too long, tries to maintain connection once this neural link has been eroded…"

"Then they will die," Kaworu finished. "Along with the Eva."

"What?" Shinji blurted.

Kaworu nodded. "That is why it was never supposed to be used. Inverted Mode is what happens when an Eva is on the verge of death."

Shinji stared aghast at the white monstrosity that Mayumi's mech had become, its tail long and lashing, its wings frayed, skeletal and clawed, protrusions from its spinal cord piercing through the flesh of its back, its seven wicked eyes glaring red back the matching set belonging to Unit 01…

Then Unit 01 let out a scream that shook the very Earth beneath them, causing Mayumi's horrid monstrosity to tumble away, clawing at the red soaked dirt as it flew back with the shockwave, until it found purchase in the Earth beneath it. The white beast reared back and let out a roar of its own. It looked like a white, half-dead, bony dragon, with seven eyes, and unholy red claws.

Shinji watched in horror as Mayumi took off again in the direction of Unit 01. She was going to get herself killed! And they were all just standing there, watching.

He shook his head. "But we _are_ on the verge of death…"

Everyone watched him as he brought his Eva to its feet.

"Invert Mode!" Shinji shouted, praying to God that a voice command was all it took. "Code Word: _The Beast_!"

Shinji suddenly let out a howl of pain as his Eva began to transform. It felt like each of his bones was elongating, piercing through his skin as he felt his Eva's body began to change.

"Shinji!" Rei cried. "What are you…?"

"I can't…just…do nothing…" Shinji cringed through gritted teeth.

He could _feel_ bits of his spine being ripped from his back, could feel his tailbone elongate, could feel his fingers and toes snap and regrow into claws.

"We're all…in this…together," Shinji grunted through the pain. "If one of my…fellow pilots…is going to put…her life on the line…" he bit down on his lip to keep himself from screaming. "Then who am I to stand and watch?"

His Eva had completely transformed into a white, skeletal dragon-line monster, its claws sinking into the Earth as his Lance replicas bound themselves together, seemingly bending themselves to his will as they twisted and warped into a single, long curved red katana, capable of cutting through Absolute Terror.

"Invert Mode!" Asuka crowed, not wanting to be outdone by Shinji. "Code Word: _The Beast_!"

Kaworu gasped out as Asuka's mech began to transform as well.

"Asuka!"

The redhead growled through gritted teeth, nearly passing out from the pain. "Don't…you…tell me…that I can't…do this too!"

Her body began to twist and reshape itself, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming. Her body was on fire, as she twisted and convulsed in her pilot's chair, trying to keep her own bones from snapping in sympathetic pain. Her two Lances, as if reading her mind to find the most perfect weapon for her hands, fused together to form a single, solid black blade, like a massive double bladed sword with a bladed hand-guard connecting the two in the middle.

"I won't…back down…again!" she grunted, gritting through the pain. "I won't!"

Kaworu's knitted brows loosened as a smile appeared on his face. "This is why I love you, Asuka…" Then he turned to face Unit 01. "Invert Mode! Code Word: _The Beast_!"

Rei watched as the other pilots submitted their Eva's to the madness of the beast, each one letting out a howl as their flesh began to break and reknit to accommodate their horrific skeletal structures. All around her, her friends were turning into monsters.

"I suppose there is nothing left to say…" she muttered, steeling herself.

She was afraid, truth be told. Afraid to die. Afraid to go mad. She had nothing to fall back on, no clones to replace her now. But she was more afraid to lose her friends and the people she loved. Shinji was right. She was one of them. For better or for worse. And they needed her now, just as much as she needed them.

She gritted her teeth.

"Invert Mode! Code Word: _The Beast_!"

xxxxx

They fought. Like monsters out of hell, like vengeful angels of death, like the gods who dueled in mythology, Eva fought Eva. They raged, they roared, they slashed and destroyed, regenerated and attacked again.

Unit 01 was effectively rooted in place by it weight as it fended off the onslaught of the five white dragon-like demons that came after it, its multitude of wing-like claws slashing and deflecting off their AT Fields, but never connecting. It lashed out with its two regular claws, breaking bones, ripping wings, snapping limbs, and at one point, even beheading one of its attackers.

It made no matter. Each Eva regenerated each limb within seconds, their cores funneling pure energy coursing through their bodies. Unit 01's wings were pulsing as it drew energy from its stolen cores, its inhuman eyes glowing as it let loose twin lances of energy from its retinas, which Asuka took square in the face. She crowed as she shrugged it off, and redoubled her efforts.

Rei pinned Unit 01 to the ground with the single spear that her twin Lances had merged into. As it tried to free itself, Shinji neatly sliced Unit 01 cleanly in half at the waist with his katana, and its legs regenerated right back again. Asuka let out a shout as she lopped its head off with a cross slash of the twin battle-axes her Lances had transformed into, Mayumi sunk her red claws into its trunk and Kaworu embedded a red metamorphosed halberd into its back. Still, Unit 01 kept regenerating and lashing back at them.

This was a war of attrition, and as powerful as the Inverted Modes were, Unit 01 still possessed more cores, and thus more power.

That was until Asuka decided to bite down on one of its wings.

"_GRAWWWR_!"

The screech of agony as Unit 01 bellowed was nearly impossible to stand. Still, Asuka bit down, her Eva's savage teeth sinking into the raw, Absolute Terror energy, as her ears began to bleed from the sound and pressure. She managed to plant a foot against Unit 01's back, and pulled, yanking her head back to rip the wing from Unit 01's back.

There was an explosion of blood as the core embedded within the claw-wing burst in a shower of condensed LCL.

"That's it!" Shinji shouted in triumph. "Everyone! Go for the wings!"

Unit 01 began lashing out in a frantic fury, as if sensing its peril. It whipped its body about left and right, but it was surrounded. Soon, more of the white, bestial Mass Produced Evangelions were latched onto the yellow, veined energy of its wings, its claws clashing futilely against their own AT Fields.

"Pull!" Mayumi urged, as she followed suit. Within her plug suit, her glasses were beginning to crack under the pressure of LCL.

One by one, the wings began to rip and tear, each one bursting like an overripe tomato as it detached from its source, each one followed by a horrendous bellow of agony from the Eva.

When Shinji ripped the last wing from Unit 01's back, there was a sudden burst of energy from the Eva, as a giant cross-shaped explosion erupted from the ground, sending all the others flying backwards.

He grunted and groaned as he felt his Eva toss and tumble, breaking probably a dozen bones, before finally coming to a halt. After he stopped rolling, Shinji opened his eyes to inspect the damage, but was surprised to find that he was staring at the drab, metal panel of the simulation chamber.

He was disconnected from his Eva.

"What the…?" Shinji blurted, trying to re-initiating the activation sequence.

He got no response.

"What happened?" he demanded from his console in absolutely stupefaction.

Her jerked the controls this way and that, jammed his thumb against the reactivation switch, before slamming his fist against the console in desperation. That blast should not have been enough to hurt his Eva, much less kill it!

But he already knew it wasn't the blast that did him it; it was the amount of time he had taken. His Eva had reached its limit. The Inverted Mode had taken its toll. His core hadn't exploded or self-destructed.

His Eva had simply died.

"Damn it!" he groaned. "Damn it! Damn it all!"

It wasn't fair. He felt tiny and insignificant. He felt broken. He felt helpless. What was it all for? He had emptied every last resource he had available! He had mustered every last vestige of strength to stop his own Eva, but he just hadn't been strong enough!

His pod began to drain of LCL, and he began to weep.

"Shinji…"

He looked up. His simulation pod had been opened. Rei was standing outside, holding out a hand to him. There was a look in her eyes that Shinji couldn't identify. She was…sad? Relieved? It was impossible to tell.

Shinji hesitated, before taking her hand, letting her help him out of his pod. Outside, the other pilots stood or sat, looking tired, worn out, forlorn, or otherwise haggard and not at all satisfied. From their expressions, Shinji could only surmise that their Eva's had experienced a similar fate to his.

His heart sank.

"Did…did we get it?"

If they had succeeded in bringing Unit 01 down, then maybe it would all be worth it. But then everyone looked away from him and he saw Rei's lip curve into a frown as she shook her head.

And that's when he knew they were doomed.

xxxxx

"Not long now…"

Kaworu stared upward at the ceiling of Terminal Dogma, the other pilots gathered around him, Asuka standing next to him, hands on her hips.

"You're not fighting that thing all by yourself, damn it!" Asuka blurted, continuing the argument they had been in the midst of. "That's final!"

Around them, the adults – Misato, Kaji, Ritsuko, Maya, Naoko, Yui and Gendo – as well as Adam and Lilith, their white, lithe and glowing bodies that looks so much – and so little – like Kaworu and Rei, all stood, watching and waiting, as the foundation around them shook with each progressive step of their foe. Above them, Unit 01 was crawling down the main shaft. Without the benefit of its stolen cores, it had taken a while for it to tunnel downward, blasting with its optical lasers, ripping through steel mechanical doors with its claws, its AT field crushing everything in its path. With no other Eva at their disposal, with the dummy plug supposedly in control of Unit 01 long since beyond the reach of the German Branch, and with only a few layers of man-made walls between it and its goal, Unit 01 proceeded unencumbered. According to Adam and Lillith, not even the emergency detonation of the entirety of NERV Headquarters would have been enough to stop the advancing Evangelion. Yui and Naoko already knew this, and as a kindness, had switched it off.

"I have to, Asuka," Kaworu exhaled. He was actually surprised how reluctant he was. "Rei and Mayumi are-"

"No! Shut up!" she shouted. "Don't give me some bullshit about being chivalrous!"

"That's not it, Asuka," Kaworu said, softly. "I'm simply the only logical choice. I have the most fighting capacity out of all the Nephilim. Rei is the Angel of Humanity, her only strengths lie in bringing humanity together. And Mayumi is the Angel of Illusion. How long will an illusion keep us safe, Asuka? I am the Angel of Free Will. I alone possess the ability to overcome an Eva's control over its own actions. I am the only Angel capable of stopping Unit 01."

"But you're _not_ an Angel, damn it!" Asuka's eyes were murderous as she grabbed him by the shoulders. "There has to be some other way! You _don't_ have to do this!"

"Yes I do, Asuka…" he said, touching her cheek.

"No…" Asuka shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "No, no, no! Damn it, _no_! I won't let you _leave_ me!"

Everyone's faces were sad as they watched Asuka crying. Shinji wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. One of the Nephilim had to become a full Angel in order to fight off Unit 01. Then, win or lose, that Angel would have to return to the world beyond worlds beneath the Sea of Dirac.

There was another rumble as Unit 01 made its progress known.

"Asuka…" Kaworu breathed, his arms wrapped around the girl's shoulders. "If I don't do this, we all die. I'm gone either way, Asuka…please…" he parted with her, hands on her shoulders as he peered into her eyes. "Don't ask me to watch you die along with me…"

Asuka blinked back tears as she saw Kaworu shedding tears of his own. She couldn't remember ever seeing him cry before. Why did he always have to be right? Everything he said, everything he did…Kaworu had the right of everything. Even when it meant ending his own life.

Her head fell forward, pressed again his chest.

"I hate you…" she sobbed, sounding like a child. "I hate you so much…"

Kaworu closed his eyes. "I know, Asuka…no one should have to be put through this. This isn't…I'm not the man you deserved…"

"No…" Asuka sniffed, lifting her head to meet his eyes. "You're more than I _ever_ deserved…"

As she kissed him, the roof over their heads exploded in a shower of rubble, which rained down into the LCL near where Lilith's cross lay, unused. Moments later, Unit 01 itself landed in the LCL, the weight of its body crushing the cross under its feet.

Kaworu turned his head and parted with Asuka reluctantly, a determined frown on his face as he faced the oncoming Evangelion, its body now back to normal, the eyes lining its skull reduced back down to two, its armor mostly gone, its thin lithe body looking beaten and worn, but still terrifying as it loomed ever closer to Adam and Lilith.

Kaworu raised a single hand as he stared down his foe, preparing to expand his AT Field beyond a human's capacity. He prepared to become an Angel.

"I guess this is goodbye…"

He closed his eyes.

And then…nothing.

His eyes opened again as he stared up at the Eva, still walking towards them, trudging through the LCL, kicking up waves as it walked through knee-deep liquid.

"What's going on?" Kaworu looked at his hand and then back to Adam and Lilith. "My AT Field feels the same! Why can't I…?"

"The Seventeenth Angel has been chosen…" Lilith and Adam said in unison.

Kaworu spread his arms wide at them.

"Then let me fight! I've already decided to sacrifice my life! What more do you…?"

It was Mayumi, however, who stepped forward.

"They said the Seventeenth Angel has been chosen, Nagisa," she smiled softly. "But they never said who it was."

Her eyes were sad, but unblinking, and there was an unmistakable glow in her skin.

Kaworu's eyes widened. "Mayumi…you…?"

"I took on the mantle of the Seventeenth the moment we stepped out of the simulation plugs," she smiled sweetly, as if explaining to a small child. "Couldn't you feel it?"

Kaworu couldn't speak. He could hardly breathe. Had she been planning this the whole time? And even so…how did she even plan to stop the advancing war machine?

Mayumi stepped past him as she stared up at the massive Evangelion.

"Mayumi!" Shinji cried out in protest.

The girl help us her hand. "Silence please…this one needs to hear…"

The Eva stepped out of the LCL onto the steel floor lining its rim, and came to a halt as it seemed to consider the figure standing below it. As if summoned, Mayumi began to float into the air, her entire body relaxed and at ease as she rose up to meet the massive bio-weapon where it stood, motionless, observing her as she approached.

She came to eye level with the beast, floating a few dozen feet away from it, when it let out a growl and reached out and grabbed her with one hand, her entire body bound in its grip, with only her head remaining uncovered to peer up at the Eva's face.

"Mayumi!" Kaworu shouted, suddenly filled with a deep feeling of dread that he could not shake. Somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew how this would end.

"Shhhhhhh…" Mayumi shushed, though whether she meant it for Kaworu or the Eva, no one could tell. "It's alright…"

The Eva seemed to contemplate her as she smiled back at it. Its face was marred, broken and torn, its eyes bloodshot. If ever an Eva looked human enough to feel pain, this was what it must have looked like.

"It's alright…" Mayumi repeated. "You don't have to fight anymore…"

Shinji watched in dumbfounded fascination. Something about Mayumi's voice sounded like…like his mother's…

The Eva stood motionless for an age, until…

Unit 01 released its grip on Mayumi, its hand dropping back down as Mayumi continued to float before the Eva.

"What the…?" Shinji breathed.

"That's…that's impossible…" Kaworu stared in utter disbelief.

Mayumi spread her arms out, as though to embrace the massive bio-weapon.

"Everything's going to be alright…" she cooed softly. "I'm here…we're together now…we're safe…"

The light went out in Unit 01's eyes and there was a moment of seemingly infinite silence. Then the Eva slowly slumped to its knees, its arms falling limply by its sides, and then its body toppled over to the left, its frame crashing down into the steel and concrete floor with a loud, thunderous crash.

Mayumi slowly descended to the floor, returning to her companions.

"Unit 01 has gone dormant," she said as she landed, turning to face the others' stunned faces. "It shall never rise to do battle ever again."

Something about the determination in Mayumi's voice made it impossible to doubt her. Naoko turned her eyes to the monitor to confirm what Mayumi had said. Unit 01's life signs were gone.

"What…" Shinji muttered in stupefaction. Around him, his companions looked equally baffled. Asuka had her arms wrapped possessively around Kaworu, but otherwise looked the same. "What did you…do?"

"Kaworu was mistaken…" Mayumi's smile was an uneasy one. "The Angel of Illusion has more power than he thinks. Within Evangelion lies the soul of a mother. This mother is trapped in an eternally unending illusion of its child in constant peril. So I ended this illusion, and granted her another one: that of her child, safe and warm. She no longer has a reason to fight."

"But…" Shinji quavered, Rei's hand in his own. "But why? Why _you_? Kaworu had already decided…"

"To leave the one he loves?" Mayumi countered. "Would you really ask that of him, Shinji? Would you ask that of Rei?"

Shinji turned to look at Rei, and felt her squeeze his hand as she tried to offer a brave face.

"We've won, Shinji," Mayumi went on. "Impact has been avoided. All I had to do was become an Angel. It is the rest of you who must continue to live on."

She swept her arms around and gestured towards each of the children.

"Look around you. None of you would have made it this far if not for each other - if not for that person you're each holding in your arms right now…"

Each pilot turned to look at the boy or girl they were standing beside. Toji with Hikari, Kensuke with Mana, Asuka with Kaworu, and Shinji with Rei.

"If not for that connection you share with that person, things could have turned out very differently…" Mayumi started walking towards Adam and Lilith. "Someone who puts you before themselves…someone whose passing would hurt even more than your own…had Rei or Kaworu become the next Angel, the world that we've fought for would not have been worth living in to the people that loved them…" Mayumi turned and stood with the two Angels. "Cherish that person in your arms…for that is a love that I have never and shall never know…"

Kaworu took a step forward. "That's not fair! Mayumi, you're one of us! You deserve the same happiness that we have!"

"I am happy…" Mayumi smiled. "To see that each of you has found someone, and how much stronger they've made you…"

"But you could have found someone later on!" Hikari cried out. "Just because you haven't found love yet doesn't mean you never will!"

Mayumi shook her head. "My love is not worth the end of the world."

"What about your family back in China?" Shinji asked.

Mayumi closed her eyes. "My family has been dead for years now…they are in the sea of souls that awaits me now. I'm sorry to have deceived you…"

"What about us? Your friends?" Rei blurted. "Do you think that you mean nothing to us? Do you think that we won't weep for you?"

Mayumi had tears in her eyes. "Please…do not make this more difficult for me than it already is…"

Shinji felt a pair of strong hands rest on his shoulders and looked up to see his father standing over him, a warm smile on his face, warmer than he'd ever seen.

"Shinji…you have to let her go…"

Shinji looked up at his father and nodded, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"We won't forget you, Mayumi…I promise…"

The pilots stood together and nodded in agreement.

Mayumi took a step back, and let Adam and Lilith both put a hand on her shoulders.

Terminal Dogma suddenly lit up brighter than any amount of daylight could have offered. A beam of light seamed to shine down on Adam and Lilith, as well as Mayumi. The girl closed her eyes, as she became bathed in light. Once again, she began to rise up into the air, lifting off the ground, this time wreathed in a halo of light. She rose, higher and higher, until she was too far up to see.

When she disappeared, Adam and Lilith turned to look towards the others.

"And so it is done…" Lillith said softly.

Adam held out a well-muscled arm. "Come…it is time…"

Without speaking, Yui stepped forward. Shinji thought that she was simply going to say farewell, but she turned and stood with them, as she looked back at the other, a sad look in her eyes.

And he knew.

He just knew.

"No…"

Shinji shook his head, shivering. His eyes became cold, dead orbs. He felt his knees go weak. He would have fallen had Rei not caught him. He would have charged forward if his father's hands weren't crushing his shoulders in their grip.

"Why…?" he rasped, his throat closing around his words. "Just when you've finally come back to us…"

"Redemption," Yui answered simply. "Absolution. Balance. Your friend said it best, Shinji. There can be no love without remorse. There can be no peace without suffering. There can be no life without sacrifice."

"Yui…" Gendo breathed, grief barely contained. He had known all along that she had been alive all this time, but he hadn't known about this. "Was this your plan all along…?"

Yui closed her eyes. "The Angels require the blood of the human responsible for Second Impact. That was not Lorenz Keel, my love…though he may have believed me to be his puppet, I knew the risks. I knew the danger. I knew the laws. I knew exactly what I was getting into. And still, I pushed forward…"

Yui's eyes opened again.

"This is my price."

"Commander…"

Yui smiled at Ritsuko, a look of hurt in her eyes. Maya was standing next to her, holding the woman's hand in her own.

"Remember what I've taught you, Ritsuko. You've made me and your mother so very proud, and I know that you'll go on to do even greater things…"

Naoko sighed and walked towards the Commander of NERV.

"Should have known better than to bet against you, Ikari," she sighed, sounding grudging but respectful. "I guess you win…you old bat."

Yui smiled back at her. "I'll try not to let it get to my head, old hag."

The two women shook hands.

Gendo and Shinji approached her once Naoko had turned to go.

"Mom…" Shinji muttered.

Yui wrapped her arms around the boy in a possessive embrace. She could remember a day when, to do that, she would have had to lift him off the ground or crouch down in order to reach him. "Oh, Shinji, you've grown so much. I couldn't be more proud of you…"

Shinji was fighting back tears. "I…I'm sorry…"

Yui blinked, taking his shoulders in her hands to look at him. "What for? You've saved the world today, my son!"

Shinji bit his lip. "I know you've kept things from me…I know you've hidden the truth from me at times, I know you've done a lot of things at NERV that I'll never understand. But…but I know it was all because you wanted to keep me safe…"

Yui was fighting back tears of her own now. "Oh, Shinji…"

He sniffed. "I just wish…things could have just been normal for us..." he wiped away a tear. "If things had played out the way they were supposed to…you would have been gone long ago, wouldn't you?"

Yui embraced him tightly. It seemed she had no more secrets from him.

"Never, Shinji…" she sighed, hugging him deeply. "Never gone. I'll always be watching you…always…"

Shinji stepped back and let his father and mother share one last kiss.

"You knew I'd never let you do this if I had known of this…" Gendo breathed as he kissed her.

Yui nodded, eyes lowered. "Yes…"

He let out a sigh. "You know if I could take your place, I would…"

She nodded again. "Yes…"

"I see. Then there is nothing else to say, except…that I will always love you…"

Gendo kissed her again.

Yui's smile was warm and overpowering.

"Take care of Shinji…"

"I will…"

He stepped away, and watched her rise into the air with Adam and Lilith, the three figures encircling one another as they disappeared into the light. As she looked down, she could see each of them looking up at her. Most of them had their arm around someone else. Despite everything that had happened, the world kept on turning. Life kept on happening. People kept on loving.

This world, it seemed, would be just fine without her.

xxxxx

Kaworu appeared before the fifteen monoliths of SEELE.

"You dare even speak to us like this?" the first one asked.

Kaworu was not smiling.

"Daring, it seems, should be something with which you are all very familiar."

"Do not think that your actions change anything, Tabris," the monolith spoke. "Third Impact is still coming. Human Complementation is an inevitability."

Kaworu lowered his head. "I am no longer Tabris, old man…but you may be right. Impact may be unavoidable. But I can promise you one thing…"

Kaworu's eyes narrowed in a deadly glare.

"Neither you nor I shall be there to bear witness when it happens."

There was a muffled sound heard from the audio speaker as Lorenz Keel seemed to gasp for breath.

"Tabris…" he choked through the loudspeaker. "Impossible…"

Kaworu was slowly closing his hand into a fist. His AT Field had gotten a lot stronger as of late. Even as a Nephilim, it was possible for him to reach across distances and exact his control over instruments, just as he had to communication lines in countless battles, just as he had evaded Section Two, just as he could have, had he been granted the mantle of Seventeenth Angel, seized total control of Unit 01.

"You cannot…do this…" Keel gasped and groaned, invisible from behind the monolith. All around him, the other members of SEELE were voicing their protest. "I…made…you…!"

Kaworu closed his eyes. "And now…I unmake you…"

Kaworu clenched his fist, and all at once, the life support that kept Keel's ancient body breathing, the artificial organs and bones, the pacemakers and catheters, all ruptured within the ruin of his body.

The SEELE 01 monolith flickered and vanished.

"No more secrets…" Kaworu decreed. "No more tricks. No more lies. After today, I am human. I am free."

Around him, the other members of SEELE offered threats, others offered compromises, and others openly begged. Some tried to flee, some attempted to send security forces to Kaworu's location, some simply mouthed off their bigoted propaganda until Kaworu's AT field constricted around them, and ended them.

It made no matter. The monoliths were all gone by the time Kaworu left.

"Farewell, father…" Kaworu said. "Give my regards to oblivion…"

xxxxx

September 1st, 2016

"Yo, Shin-man!" Toji threw his arm around Shinji's shoulder, giving him a companionable hug. "Enjoy your summer?"

"Hey – ow!" Shinji winced at the embrace. Toji had always been stronger than he was. Maybe he should start working out, he mused.

It was weird going back to school in Japan. The pilots were now living in Tokyo-2, with most of the refugees from Tokyo-3. It was a very different city, and yet, with all the familiar faces, it began to feel more and more like home as the days went on. The fortress city was not planned to be rebuilt, but left barren as a reminder of the destruction that had happened there.

NERV, such as it was, was no more, the remnants dispersing to work in the JSSDF and other police and military forces around the world, some of them even signing on to the UN. Shinji was living with his father now, who was one of the ones working in the Strategic Self Defense Force along with Misato and Kaji. Rei had moved back in with Naoko, though the woman was rarely at home, spending most of her time abroad with Ritsuko and Maya, who had gone to apply her scientific mind to the UN's global rebuilding effort. Asuka had spent the summer with her parents in Munich, but had decided to move back to Japan when school started back up. Kensuke, Toji and Hikari moved in with their families, and Mana went back to the JSSDF, her foster parents still living on base.

"Toji, stop harassing the poor boy!" Hikari said, tugging Toji off of Shinji, and holding him by the arm. "Hi Shinji. Hi Rei."

Shinji smiled. Rei, who was sitting next to him, smiled too.

"Good morning, Hikari. Do you feel like joining us for lunch later?"

"Oh, we'd love to," Hikari smiled. "Wouldn't we, Toji?"

The young man chuckled. "Sure thing! Wanna hit the roof?"

"Not without me you aren't!" Asuka came waltzing in, book bag in hand.

"Asuka!" Shinji smiled. "You're back from your summer abroad!"

Asuka sniffed. "Oh please. I grew up in Germany. This place is abroad for me."

Shinji waved off her comment and he gave her a warm hug. "Oh come on, you know this place will always be your home too."

Asuka blushed and looked away. "Yeah, sure…now where's that useless boyfriend of mine?"

Hikari gestured over to the crowd of girls in the back row. "Where do you think?"

Asuka ground her teeth as she marched to the back of the class. She swore she could see little hearts floating above their heads!

"And so you see, Plato refers to the ideals of nature, color, shapes, and even everyday objects as having perfect representations known as the Forms…" Kaworu was explaining to the bewitched crowd of gawking girls, though few of them even knew what he was talking about, none of them seemed to care, and were merely content to ogle him.

"Ahem!" Asuka cleared her throat. "Did you forget about someone?"

Kaworu's eyes lit up. "Oh! Asuka! You're back!"

Immediately, he was on his feet, and before Asuka had a chance to lecture him about his decorum, he had her in his arms, had swept her off her feet, and leaned over to peer into her eyes.

"What took you so long, my princess?"

While Asuka was merely blushing at this, the crowd of fan girls around them were practically reeling as the young man placed a gentle kiss upon her lips.

Asuka brushed him off and got to her feet, clearing her throat, still a little red-faced. "Ahem…anyway, we're having lunch with Shinji and the others on the roof. Don't be late."

Kaworu nodded. "That sounds like a good plan. But what about-?"

BOOM!

The classroom shook before Kaworu could complete the thought. A gust of wind carrying papers and debris blew past he door from one of the science labs down the hall. Shortly afterward, Mana came running past the classroom, hair disheveled, followed closely by Kensuke, with several holes scorched into his shirt.

"How was I supposed to know those chemicals would react like that?" Mana exclaimed. "We're not all science geeks you know!"

"Damn it, Mana!" Kensuke shouted as the two of them rushed for a fire extinguisher. "If we fail this summer project because of you, I swear to god…!"

The classroom full of students could say little and do less as the two of them ran back in the other direction, fire extinguisher in hand, in a rush to put out the small chemical fire they had apparently just caused.

"Well…" Asuka shrugged. "If those two aren't expelled before lunch, I guess we can invite them along."

Later, once everything had settled down, Hikari called the class to order.

"Rise! Bow! Be seated!"

The ancient dinosaur that was their teacher stood up and adjusted his glasses as he peered at the roster in front of him.

"Well now…I hope you've all had a safe and enjoyable summer," he said. "It seems we have a new student this year. Please step to the front and introduce yourself."

The class watched as a girl with dark red hair and glasses signed her name on the chalkboard, and turned around to offer the class a playful smile.

"I'm Makinami Mari," she winked. "Nice to meet you all!"

Shinji smiled. It looked like it was shaping up to be a fun year.


	4. Epilogue

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**The Difference of a Life**

By Kraven Ergeist

April 13th, 2021

Rei felt herself adrift in a sea of souls. She felt in touch with every being on Earth who had ever lived, with every being ever destined to live, and felt an overwhelming sense of peace overcome her. Such a strange feeling for one so tormented by fear and insecurity. As Rei had aged, the lingering dread of some inevitable demise forever haunted her dreams. There was so much wrong about the way she had come into this world. She lacked true parents, her own genome owing its origins to an Angel and a human woman who happened to also give birth to the man she would fall in love with. She had originally been designed as a carrier for the genetic code of Lilith, to reunite with its originator and bring about an apocalypse.

She was designed to be a tool. And as much as Shinji (and every one of her friends) assured her that she was human, with all the rights, gifts and freedoms that they all enjoyed, she could not escape the fact their reasoning was fundamentally flawed. She was _not_ human. She had not been designed to be human. She had been designed to _look_ human enough, to _act_ human enough to pass inspection. But she would never be a complete human. She hadn't been designed to feel human. She hadn't been designed to give birth to humans. And she hadn't been designed to fill a human lifespan.

At the age of sixteen, she had started to notice the signs. Her mother and sister, as well as Yui Ikari, had all explained to her enough to allow her to get by. All that was holding this fragile shell that was her body together was the strength of her AT Field. Without it, her body would fall apart within moments. She must have been deteriorating visibly by now. Every time she saw her adopted mother and sister now, they couldn't even look at her. They would each try to hide the shame and sadness in their eyes, but she could see it. She could see the knowledge that they each hid. They knew she was going to die.

But Rei held on. Against all odds, she had lived on to adulthood. She had lived on to graduate from high school. She had lived on to marry Shinji, and spend their days together. Even while every day was tarnished by that fear that it might be her last, every moment they spent together was more precious to her than she could ever convey. But as each passing day moved on, as hard as she held on, she began to feel her grip on life grow fainter and fainter.

Shinji must have noticed her diminished behavior, how quickly she lost her breath, how little exertion it would take to exhaust her. But he never mentioned it. He never made her feel weak or insecure. Never brought up her angelic nature, her blood ties to his mother, or the fact that she would never bear him children. He treated her the same way he always had. Every day, he just seemed happy to be with her. And she loved him all the more for it.

But somehow, none of that mattered now. Not in this ocean of peace. She felt as if she could peer back across the ages, and witness the first human draw breath. She could see off into the distant future, when Third Impact would eventually claim them all. It was an age of human enlightenment, when all of humanity could acknowledge one another. An age where mankind was truly ready to take the next step.

Was this death?

"_Ayanami…Rei…_" a voice spoke to her through the sea of souls. It sounded like her own voice, but it was different; older…yet also younger. As if it belonged to all of her lives, at every age. Some were children, some teenaged, some fully grown, some of them as old as humans could hope to live. Their voices sounded together, a symphony of sound as they each spoke. And when she turned to look upon the alternate realities of her life, they seem to gather together into a single, solitary entity that stood higher than all the rest, a massive shape in the sky that looked down at her with a disturbing kind of curiosity.

"You are…" Rei breathed. She peered up to gaze into the figure's eyes. It looked so much like herself, so much like Yui, so much like Lillith. It was as if she were one and the same.

"_I am That Which Was_…" its mouth opened and the voice that was many spoke. "_I am That Which Is_…"

Then the figure held out its hand, and reached for Rei as though to seize her. Rei felt a sudden sense of dread overtake her as the thing's impossibly massive hand closed around her, and the figure's eyes darkened to black and red orbs, like out of some nightmare.

"_I am…That Which Should Be_…"

Rei curled her arms around her face, curling up into a ball to protect herself from the thing that was reaching for her, trying to crush her in its grip. She could feel the world around her begin to crumble, as her grasp on everything, each of the souls swimming about her began to wither and disappear. Rei blinked through tears and was stricken by how black and cold everything seemed to her now. She tried wrapping her arms around herself to keep her body warm, but she had no arms with which to do so. She had no body to protect.

She was falling apart, her body dissipating into the Sea of Souls.

"No…" she sobbed, pleading with the darkness that threatened to claim her. Already, she could feel the AT Field around her soul ebbing, her consciousness dissolving.

"Please…" she barely managed to breath. "I…I don't want to die…"

Then, as if it had never been otherwise, she felt a pair of warm arms encircle her, and all at once she was whole again.

"It's alright, Rei…" she heard the voice say again. Only, it wasn't the voice from before, at least, not entirely. Where the other voice had been a dissonance of hundreds of voices, this one was singular, grownup, and tender as a mother's kiss.

She opened her eyes and saw herself.

No, not herself, she realized. Over the years, as Rei had grown into a woman, she had begun to resemble the woman who created her. But this woman did not have blue hair, but brown.

"…Commander…?"

The woman smiled at her, and at once, Rei felt safe and warm.

"But…how…?" Rei blinked, in disbelief. "You're dead…"

Yui nodded. "Of course I am, Rei…how could I be speaking to you like this if I were not?"

Rei blinked, trying to understand.

"What…what's going on?" she said, her voice weak and afraid. "I was…I was about to die…"

Yui's smile was all she could see.

"Who do you think created you, Rei? Do you really think I would be so heartless as to grant you only such a short time on Earth?"

Rei blinked in confusion. "What…?"

"I planned for this day since the moment I created you," Yui said, a hint of triumph in her voice. "Everything had to appear as if you were their tool, so it must have appeared that you were dying, Rei. But you never were. And had they attempted Third Impact with you, they would have been greatly disappointed."

Rei held her head in her hands. "No…this is impossible…"

"You are no mere copy either Rei," Yui said reassuringly. "I was able to intricate enough donor genes into your genetic code to make you a true and genuine human being."

Rei began to shake her head. A dream. This all had to be a dream.

"Once you reached your twentieth year," Yui went on, "Your genome was designed to shed all Angelic programming and become completely human, with all of a human's traits. The gift of life…and the burden of giving life."

Rei clenched her eyes shut. This couldn't be real. This was her deluded imagination concocting a surreal fantasy world for her as she was on the verge of death.

"Rei…" Yui took the girl in her arms. The Commander looked so sad. So ashamed. So grateful. "I know I've placed a great deal upon you by bringing you into this world and giving you your role to perform in preserving life on Earth. This is my way of making it up to you. I pray that it will be enough for you to one day be able to forgive me."

Rei blinked back tears as Yui touched her lips to her forehead. She felt her world begin to reshape around her. While she lacked her attachment to the sea of souls, her own form felt whole, more complete than she could ever remember feeling in her life.

Yui began to drift away from her.

"Farewell…" she whispered, lifting a hand.

Rei blinked twice, opened her mouth to speak…

And all at once, she woke up in a sweat.

xxxxx

Shinji was woken by the bathroom light. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he stared at the clock on the night stand.

Two thirty-five in the morning. What was Rei doing up at this hour?

Shinji swung his legs over the bed and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light from the bathroom. The bathroom door was open about a foot, letting a long trail of light stretch across the bedroom floor. He didn't hear the sound of running water. He waited what he felt was a reasonable amount of time, and then gingerly got to his feet and crept over to tap lightly the bathroom door.

"Rei?"

He heard a sudden intake of breath inside the bathroom.

"I…I'm here…"

Rei's voice sounded…shaky. Hesitant.

Shinji's hand rested over the doorknob. "Is everything alright?"

When he heard her sob, he opened the door.

She was in a pair of light blue flannel pajamas that Hikari had given her on her sixteenth birthday. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hair a tangled mess, and she was sitting hunched over on the edge of the toilet seat cover, looking for all the world like the most pitiful creature on Earth.

But the expression on her face, the way her eyes lit up when she saw him, the exuberance of her smile was unlike anything Shinji had ever seen before.

"Rei…?" Shinji peered at her, trying to figure out what she was so upset about, or if she was indeed upset. "What's the matter?"

She sniffed and raised her head up, straightening her back to meet his gaze. She was quivering, though whether from fear, illness, or something else entirely, Shinji had no clue.

"Shinji…" she whispered. Her voice was breathy and ecstatic, tapering off into pearlescent tones, faltering and broken. She looked terrified, traumatized, elated, miserable, baffled.

Shinji was worried that she might faint. Never before had he seen such a plethora of emotion, spilling out all at once, and he had known her all his life.

That's when he saw something small and thin fall from her trembling hands and hit the floor with a clatter. It looked like a piece of beige plastic, with a small depression that was highlighted in red.

He looked up again to meet her expression Her cheeks were damp from tears, but Shinji could see now that they were tears of joy.

Shinji's eyes widened, his mouth gaping wide. "R-Rei…?"

Now it was Shinji's voice that was quavering. He practically fell to his knees, grabbing her arms, nearly breaking into a fit of sobs himself.

"Rei!" his voice was soft, high and excited, like he was amazed at the simple fact that she was even there. As he pulled her to him, she broke out into another fit of tears, her voice whimpering, laughing, sobbing. She held onto him tightly, as if she had been falling all her life.

"H-How…?" Shinji asked dumbly, honestly not sure of what else to say.

Rei tried to speak, but all she could manage was another round of jubilant sobbing, and she buried her face against his chest, her hands gripping tightly at his nightshirt.

Shinji was in shock. He had been noticing Rei's behavior of late, but never before had he seen her like this. It was like there had been a stopper placed in her emotions, which had suddenly been removed, and now a lifetime's worth of tears and laughter was spilling out all at once.

He reached for a tissue and began dabbing delicately at her tear-soaked face, smiling at her as reassuringly as possible.

"I didn't…" he began, stuttering slightly. His mind was practically running on autopilot. "I didn't think it was possible…"

Rei sniffed, letting out another half-laugh, half-sob.

Shinji dried her cheeks, lifting her face to meet her eyes, a warm, reassuring smile on his face.

"Rei…" he breathed. "You've never looked more beautiful to me than you do right now…"

Rei's sighed, letting out a breath as she smiled, which slowly turned into a laugh. It started out as an exhilarated exclamation, but slowly turned into a cry for help.

"I don't know what to do…"

Here she was, having finally attained the humanity she had so been yearning for, seeing a whole world of possibilities open up before her, and she had no idea which road to take. It was impossible to see down any of them, and every journey looked like a treacherous hike through heartache and hardship.

But as Shinji took her hand in his to give it a tight squeeze, she soon began to realize just how much happiness and wonder lay down whichever road she chose to take.

Because they would be taking it together.

Slowly, she got to her feet, leaning heavily against her husband as he helped her back to bed. Rei didn't sleep much that night, lying awake staring at the ceiling, her mind still racing at the thought of the years ahead of her, and the wide, beautiful world that was out there waiting for her. Shinji didn't get much sleep either, and had left his hand resting on her stomach, stroking and caressing gently, his mind awash with how he was going to handle being a father.

Rei thought back to all those possible futures she had witnessed. Not just _That Which Should Be_, but all of the others whose voices had contributed to the cacophony. Some of the lives she had seen had died very young. Some had died when she was still a pilot. Some had seen her as old as she was now, while still others had been elderly. She wondered how many futures she'd lived through to get to this one, how many times she'd died, how many times the Angels had been fought, defeated, lost to, and how many times Third Impact had occurred, been altered, or simply avoided.

What made this one different? What had happened in this life to make things turn out like this? Mayumi had said it best: with her and all her fellow pilots' circumstances, their quirks, their psychological oddities, and baggage they each carried, they could have turned out very differently. Disastrously differently.

So what had changed? What had been altered to make this reality different from all the others?

She turned to look at Shinji, who gave her a half lidded smile as he continued to stroke her stomach. She couldn't imagine life without him. She couldn't imagine how she'd be without him. Would Asuka have been any better off without Kaworu? Or Toji without Hikari? Or Kensuke without Mana? Did that one special someone change so much about each of them?

As she leaned her head on Shinji's shoulder, Rei felt him kiss her cheek.

"I love you, Rei…"

Rei sighed and closed her eyes. She felt Shinji's hand stroke her belly. Somewhere within her, there was another life, slowly rising from the sea of souls, to take their first step into the world. Mayumi and the Commander had left this world to them, and it was up to them to make this world worth living. But they never could have done it without each other.

Perhaps Mayumi had been right, Rei thought, as she drifted off to sleep.

Perhaps one life made all the difference.

~fin

xxxxx

7 years, 3 books, 34 chapters, and 143,835 words ago, I started writing this fic. At the time, I had no plan for making this anything ambitious. I just wanted to see what would happen if Yui had been alive at the start of Evangelion, and what difference her life would have made. But in the end, the difference of a life didn't come down to Yui's existence, but to everyone. What started out as an exploration of Shinji and Rei's relationship expanded into examination of a everyone's relationship.

Thanks to all my subscribers. Thanks for all your comments and criticisms, your encouragements and rants. You were my motivation. You were the yardstick against which I measured my abilities. I couldn't have completed this fic without your continued support.

Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep showing your devotion to the things you love. It's that kind of dedication that's responsible for the world of fan fiction.


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